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This source of this article is kbpi.com: http://tinyurl.com/4ery2 Kerry Wants Stem-Cell Research, Energy Alternatives Knight Ridder Washington Bureau CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Sen. John Kerry on Monday invoked the spirit of the Apollo project, which put a man on the moon, to urge increased stem-cell research and a crash program to make the nation independent of foreign oil. "We need to push the curve of discovery," Kerry said at the Kennedy Space Center, "Let's go forward." Kerry also called for a lower volume on political discourse and defended his wife's tart dismissal of a journalist's question, a dustup that threatened to obscure the carefully crafted optimistic themes the campaign is projecting this week. Theresa Heinz Kerry told an editor from a conservative newspaper to "shove it" when he asked about comments that appeared to accuse the Bush administration of coarsening politics in her speech Sunday night to the Pennsylvania delegation in Boston. "I think my wife speaks her mind appropriately," Kerry said as he toured a historical display of NASA rockets with former Ohio Sen. John Glenn, the Mercury astronaut who was the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962. "The great mission to the moon of today is to make America secure by becoming energy independent - alternative and renewable fuels," Kerry said in a town hall meeting format that allowed him to pace with a microphone and take dozens of questions from an invited crowd. Kerry said that his administration would lift restrictions on research on human stem cells, hoping that could help people suffering from spinal cord injuries and such diseases as Alzheimer's, heart disease and cancer. "The human spirit has always been to ask questions and go out and find the answers," Kerry said. He said that President Bush put ideology before progress in imposing limits on the research to existing stem cell lines. The president, who opposes abortion, believes that expanded research would lead to the destruction of more embryos. On a recent trip through the Midwest, Kerry said he believed that life begins at conception. But during an interview with ABC News earlier this week, he said that belief is not inconsistent with his support of more stem-cell research and abortion rights. Life begins at conception, but a first-trimester fetus is not a "person" entitled to legal protection, Kerry said. "What we need to do is have an honest dialogue and not succumb to the cynicism that sort of reduces these things to simplicity," Kerry told ABC. "It's not simple. It's a very complicated, highly emotional, very searing decision. I don't want the government making that decision for people, and that is a bedrock belief. But it doesn't change what I believe about how life goes on." Teresa Heinz Kerry's retort to the editorial page editor of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review was less philosophically minded. During remarks to delegates from her home state, she condemned "some of the creeping un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics." The editor, Colin McNickle, afterward persisted in asking her what she meant. Heinz Kerry walked away and then wheeled back, accusing him of mischaracterizing her remarks. "You're from the Tribune-Review - understandable," she said. "You said something I didn't say. Now shove it." The newspaper is owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, a bankroller of conservative Republican causes, and has been critical of Heinz family charities and of Kerry as a candidate. Before the campaign event here, as the Kerry cavalcade headed north, a motorcycle officer in the Brevard County Sheriff's Office took a bad spill. Immediately, Kerry ordered the motorcade to make a U-turn to return to the scene of the accident. Kerry hopped out of his armored Chevrolet Suburban and leaned toward the officer, Sgt. Eric Daddow, who was in a neck brace and strapped to a backboard. Kerry gripped his own fist, a trademark hang-tough gesture. A biker himself, Kerry has a special affinity for motorcycle officers, often spending time thanking each of them personally before he boards his plane. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn