European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 06, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 4 the stars and stripes Friday october 6,1989 Senate oks ban on defacing Flag Washington Ai the Senate on thursday overwhelmingly approved a statutory ban on defacing the american Flag after sponsors Defeated a proposed revision they said could prove fatal in a future court test. The 91-9 final vote came after Maneu vering by Senate republicans who say. Along with president Bush that a constitutional amendment rather than a simple statute is the Only effective Way to coun Ter last june s supreme court decision throwing out a Texas Flag burning Law. The Bill which previously passed the House but now returns there for consideration of Senate changes Calls for up to a 1,000 Fine and a year in jail for burning or otherwise defacing the Flag. Both houses arc to consider a proposed amendment to the Constitution later this month. The democrats say they have carefully worded their Bill to protect it against an expected new court Challenge on free speech grounds. Before final passage thursday the sen ate voted 53-47 to table or kill an Amend ment offered by minority Leader Bob Dole a Kan. To apply the defacement ban Only to those who acted in Public. It accepted however an amendment from sen. I Cie Wilson. A Calif. 10 make it illegal to physically defile the Flag. The Dole amendment was the Poten tial killer said sen. Joseph r. Biden. A Del. Biden told the Senate wednesday night that the Dole and Wilson Amend ments would skew the language and push it closer toward the danger one in which a court could find that the Bill limited Freedom of speech. Republican sponsors of the constitutional amendment scoffed saying that the Bill would fail a court lest in any Case. After Senate approval however Biden said there was not much to fear from the Wilson amendment. Wilson s of he said. I just did t want a trend in Start and that s Why i opposed my expectation is that the House will accept our changes and i think they May act fairly quickly he said. He said hews Uncertain whether Bush would sign the legislation. Biden said it was too Early to forecast the prospects for the proposed constitutional amendment in the Senate. It la be he said. Some lawmakers clearly were hoping that support for the Bill would insulate them from charges on the Campaign Trail next year that they failed to support the constitutional amendment. And a number of lawmakers indicated that they would vote for both the Bill and the amendment. Burning the Flag already is outlawed under Federal Law but few believe that statute could withstand a court test such As the one in the Texas Case. Democratic sponsors sought to design a Bill that would ban any act of deface ment regardless of whether it involved political protest. That Way. They said there would be no danger of it being held unconstitutional. Sen. Howard m. Mcl a Baum d Ohio one of the few lawmakers who oppose not Only the constitutional Amend ment but also the Bill on grounds that they encroach on the right to free speech told colleagues during thursday s de Bate Stop and reflect i you believe that there is a political tidal wave that you cannot resist you Are other democrats who voted against the Bill were Sens. Edward m. Kenned of Massachusetts. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska and Daniel p. Moynihan of new York. The Bill also was opposed by Dole and four other republicans Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah Charles Grassley of Iowa John h. Chafe of Rhode Island an Gordon Humphrey of new Hampshire. Rocks found in Canada Are oldest known St. Louis a a summer of Ordinary geologic investigation in a Remote area of Canada has reaped an unexpected scientific Bonanza nearly 4 billion year old rocks the oldest known on Earth. It was pure scientific Luck said Samuel Bowring a geologist at Washington University in St. 1-Ouis, who has been conducting research in Canada s Northwest Territo Ries since 1979. I actually had predicted these rocks were going to be very Young. Maybe 2 billion years if 1 had known of course that 1 was looking at the world s oldest rocks i d have done this he said studying the chemistry of the rocks will give researchers insight into the Early history of Earth and its fellow planets. The rocks Are Only about 600 million years younger than Earth itself which scientists believe was formed about 4.6 billion years a Little More perspective scientists say the first dinosaurs began to roam the Earth about 200 million years ago. And the first human ancestors who used tools did t show up until about 2 million years ago. Few rocks of this age Are left since the Earth s sur face has been churned and recycled by meteorites vol canoes erosion and the slow but constant movement of the continents. The oldest rocks left in Missouri for example arc roughly 1.48 billion years oldest known rocks before Bowring s discovery were about 3.8 billion years old found in the Isu Kasia Region of Greenland in the 1970s, he said. We Are a giant step further in our search for knowledge of what happened in the Earth s first 800 million years. The question now is whether rocks from 4.6 to 3.8 billion years were mostly destroyed by meteorite Impact or whether they never formed in great volume in the first Bowring. Assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences collected the granitic rocks in 1986 from a Remote area North of Yellowknife and great slave Lake where he has been conducting a mapping project initiated by the geological Survey of Canada. He extracted from the rocks tiny crystals of the min eral Zircon and used an instrument called a mass spec Trometer to measure How much of various isotopes of professor Samuel born in Hulff a Rock a elicited to be Only about 600 million cars younger than Earth itself uranium and Lead they contained. Knowing How fast uranium decays and determining How much uranium had decayed leaving Lead allowed him to calculate that the rocks were older than 3.84 billion years. Zircons arc like time capsules he said. The first analyses of the zircons indicated that the rocks were very old indeed but their history was very he needed More detailed information so he went to australian National University in Canberra where he Analysed the zircons with a More precise instrument. That instrument put the age of the rocks at 3.962 Bil lion years give or take 3 million the results of his research in collaboration with Ian Williams and William Compston of Australia will be published in Novom bar a Szuc of gc9logy, a Publica Tion of the geological society of America. Last summer Bowring brought Back an additional 6,000 pounds of the Rock. I have every reason to believe we re going to find even older rocks. I m excited about it but there s lots More things to do. I Hope this will stimulate people to go out there and look for even older commercially funded rocket Burns on pad Vandenberg fab Calif. A the first american rocket built and de signed entirely with commercial funds i i cd and burned on the launch pad thursday the project s backers said we lighted it up and for one reason or the other it did t lift off said Jim Bennett president of the american rocket co. Of Camarillo Calif. The launch team tried to disengage the Rock Al but it caught fire he said. The 58-foot rocket used in the $2 Mil lion experimental launch was to have flown on a 15-minute suborbital flight to test Star wars missile detectors and a heat shield Parachute that might help astronauts escape a space station emergency. There was fire on the pad which is now close to burning itself out Bennett said. The air Force said there was mini Mal damage to the launch pad. Which belongs to the air Force but the vehicle is the 33,400-Pound rocket is powered by a hybrid engine that runs on a combi nation of liquid oxygen and a rubber like solid fuel. American rocket said is Booster was the first designed and built Only wit commercial funds. Rockets in other commercial launches this year were built under government programs but later sold for commercial use according to the s launch was scheduled so the rocket could release a Cloud of inert Gas As the Pentagon s Delta Star satellite passed overhead. The satellite contains sensors that someday Mav be part of a strategic defense initiative system i which satellites would detect incoming warheads so they could be destroyed. Defense department spokesman maj. William o Connell said earlier that the Pentagon would not reveal whether the sensors detected the rocket also was scheduled to de ploy a lest Model of an s a foot wide Para shield a combined heat shield and Parachute that someday might be part of an escape system to allow space station astronauts to return to Earth. David Akin assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of technology had his design class build the 390-Pound Model
