Science Festival, Freedom Plaza, Oct. 23. © 2010 Matt Dunn

Good morning, City Desk readers. Your news:

• Yesterday on the MPD-4D listserv, Petworth residents tossed around the idea that the wave of violence had come to an end (or that everyone who cared had moved away), but it looks like they spoke too soon. Police are now looking for a black pick-up truck that shot at two cars last night near Farragut St. NW.
• Pop Cesspool gives his "first thumbs-down" to a Facebook ad.
• Every rag in DC has an "Inauguration Guide"–Washington City Paper's is the one you should use.
• From WaPo: Not to be outdone by PG County, Montgomery County is enacting some far-reaching legislation of its own, which will put an end to "mansionization." (Imagine someone at the planning office holding his thumb and finger close together and saying, "Your house can only be this big.")
• Also in WaPo: American kids are still "just ok" at science.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Science bites back. Science doesn't like Sarah. At all:

"This idiot woman, this blind, shortsighted ignoramus, this pretentious clod, mocks basic research and the international research community. You damn well better believe that there is research going on in animal models — what does she expect, that scientists should mutagenize human mothers and chop up baby brains for this work? — and countries like France and Germany and England and Canada and China and India and others are all respected participants in these efforts.

Yes, scientists work on fruit flies. Some of the most powerful tools in genetics and molecular biology are available in fruit flies, and these are animals that are particularly amenable to experimentation."

Last night, on Countdown, a Newsweek reporter who usually can be counted on to spout dull Conventional Wisdom declared that Sarah Palin's quip that fruit fly research is a joke may in fact be the Dumbest Thing Sarah Palin Has Ever Said.

Via Coates.