War of Words on the Dictionary in One California School District

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Loss for Words

A California school district has declared a war of words on the dictionary. Menifee Union school district has yanked all copies of the Merriam-Webster dictionary from its shelves after a curious elementary student found the phrase "oral sex."

The district, which has 9,000 students between kindergarten and eighth grade, is forming a committee to pour over all 470,000 entries.

One free speech advocate says: "If a public school were to remove every book because it contains one word deemed objectionable to some parent — then there would be no books at all in our public libraries. I think common sense seems to be lacking in this school."

Merriam-Webster does have a children's dictionary made just for the inquisitive eyes of youngsters.

The Final Frontier

NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon are considered a waste of space to the Obama administration.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that President Obama's upcoming budget proposal has no money for the constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. Instead, NASA will develop a rocket system that will take humans and robots beyond low Earth orbit, but that could take years.

In the meantime, the White House wants NASA to focus on researching and monitoring climate change.

Not in My Backyard

And a new Quinnipiac University poll shows a majority of Floridians do not want immigration laws waived to make it easier for Haitians to stay in the U.S.in the wake of the devastating earthquake.

Florida voters say 51 to 43 percent that immigration laws should be fully enforced. And 50 percent of voters surveyed disapprove of the president's decision to grant illegal Haitians in the U.S. temporary legal status for 18 months.

— Fox News Channel's Megan Dumpe Kenworthy contributed to this report.