Bill Clinton predicts strong Obama victory

Former US president Bill Clinton said he thought that fellow Democrat Barack Obama would be easily re-elected to the White House, even though polls currently show a close race.

"I still think the president will win by five or six points," Clinton told CNN, in an interview with movie producer Harvey Weinstein.
Obama faces presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the November 6 election.
Romney has surged ahead of Obama in the southern battleground state of Florida, holding a 47-41 percent lead, according to a recent Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
However Obama and Romney are even in a number of nationwide polls.
At this point polls show support for the two men closer than it will be in November, Clinton said, due to continued stress on the US economy.
But if Obama's supporters hit the trail and tout his achievements as president, Clinton said he was confident "he'll be fine and he'll be re-elected."

Rare Transit of Venus Puts Spotlight on Planetary Sun Crossings

A rare opportunity to see the planet Venus cross in front of the face of the sun is coming up next week.  

On June 5 to 6, Venus will "transit" the sun for the last time until 2117, joining the ranks of the handful of planetary transits that have occurred since the dawn of modern astronomy.
From our vantage point on Earth, we occasionally have the chance to see two planets — Venus and Mercury — pass in front of the sun, as these are the only two planetary bodies between us and our star.
Transits of Mercury are more common than Venus transits, with an average of 13 occurring each century. Venus transits come in pairs separated by eight years, with more than a century usually elapsing between one pair and the next.
"The first transit ever observed was of the planet Mercury in 1631 by the French astronomer [Pierre] Gassendi," Fred Espenak, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., wrote on the NASA Eclipse website. "A transit of Venus occurred just one month later, but Gassendi's attempt to observe it failed because the transit was not visible from Europe. In 1639, Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree became the first to witness a transit of Venus."
Planetary transits through history
Historically, planetary transits have offered a rare chance for scientists to learn about the solar system.
In the 18th century, transits of Venus provided astronomers with the first way to measure the absolute size of the solar system, including the distance from the Earth to the sun, which wasn't known at the time. Astronomer Edmond Halley first came up with the method of comparing measurements made from various locations on Earth to triangulate the distances to Venus and the sun.
This technique was successfully put into practice during expeditions to observe the Venus transits of 1761 and 1769 from around the world.
And even as recently as 2006, the transit of Mercury was used to measure the size of the sun. A group of astronomers from Hawaii, Brazil and California used NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) to time the transits of Mercury across sun in 2003 and 2006, enabling the most precise measurement yet of the diameter of the sun.
"Transits of Mercury occur 12 to 13 times per century, so observations like this allow us to refine our understanding of the sun’s inner structure, and the connections between the sun’s output and Earth’s climate," one of the members of the team, University of Hawaii astronomer Jeff Kuhn, said in a statement.
And the science being planned for the upcoming Venus transit is a step ahead of research done during the 2004 Venus transit, as instrumentation and research goals have advanced, said Matt Penn, lead scientist at the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak observatory in Arizona.
Much of the research during the past Venus transit focused on using spectroscopy — a technique to divide light into its constituent wavelengths — while looking for polarized light will be the thrust of many researchers' aims this time around, he said.
"The opportunity to read what other people did in 2004 and to build on their work is a unique opportunity," Penn told SPACE.com. "We're hoping that one of the experiments will allow us to detect polarization through Venus' atmosphere."

Venus ties to alien planets
The upcoming transit will be used not just to study the architecture of our own solar system, but that of others as well.
"Astronomers in the 18th and 19th centuries observed transits of Mercury and Venus to help measure the distance from Earth to sun," said Frank Hill, director of the National Solar Observatory’s Integrated Synoptic Program. "We have that number nailed down now, but transits are still useful. This one will help us calibrate in several different instruments, and hunt for extrasolar planets with atmospheres."
The transits of alien planets in front of their stars, from the point of view of Earth, are one of the key ways scientists discover such planets' existence. As planets pass in front of their stars, they briefly dim the stars' light, signaling their presence.
And just as with Mercury and Venus, the filtering of stars' light through planets' atmospheres can reveal clues regarding the presence and composition of gaseous atmospheres around these distant worlds.
Since scientists know quite a lot about Venus' atmosphere by now, they can use observations of its transit to calibrate their instruments and set a benchmark for studying the atmospheres of new planets beyond the solar system.

Poll names Anchorage resident worst-dressed

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Anchorage residents are apparently not dressing to impress.

That's the upshot of Travel and Leisure Magazine's reader poll, which put the residents of Alaska's largest city at the bottom when it comes to being on the top of style.
The magazine ran an online poll asking readers to rank 35 American cities on such things as best nightlife, best burgers, best New Year's Eve celebrations, etc.
By a three-tenths of a point, Anchorage landed just below Salt Lake City for having the worst-dressed residents.
"I think it's a little ridiculous, to be honest," said Hillary Walker, the assistant manager at lulu e. bebe fashion boutique in Anchorage. "I think dressing well is about feeling comfortable, experimenting, expressing yourself through your clothing. I think people in Anchorage do a great job with that."
Some others in Anchorage apparently feel differently. The unscientific poll was split between visitors to cities and residents. When you break down the worst dressed list even further, Anchorage residents rated themselves second-to-last, with Salt Lake City residents putting Utah's largest metro at the bottom of the rag pile.
The low ranking for Anchorage doesn't surprise state of Alaska labor economist Neal Fried, who went to work Thursday wearing his signature bow tie, this one featuring characters from "The Simpsons."
He discounts the theory that Anchorage residents don't shell out big bucks for fashion because of the higher prices for clothing, especially since he calls Anchorage a wealthy city — with a median income 41 percent above the national average.
Instead, he surmises it's the lifestyle of Anchorage residents and the city's weather.
Anchorage is an outdoors city, with downhill and cross country skiing, snowboarding, hiking, running and biking leading residents to resorts and trails all year long.
Often, you'll see people out to dinner with friends and their dress may appear they're better suited for a campfire.
"You can go hiking and then straight to dinner, and you might be at a five-star restaurant," Walker said. "You have to have a versatile wardrobe."
"It's more important to get out and do things and meet with friends, then I think to focus on being fashion-appropriate and savvy for every event," said Kris Natwick, membership director for the Anchorage Downtown Partnership.
And there's a good reason you see women favoring a pair of bunny boots over heels in the winter, which can stretch from October to May.
"You're not going to wear high heels out when it's been snowing six, eight, 10, 12 inches," Natwick said. "You're going to dress appropriately for the weather."
Anchorage had a record snow this past winter, with more than 11 feet. That surpassed a nearly 60-year-old record.
"It's really hard to be real stylish in February," Fried said. "But you know, it's easy to be stylish in LA in February."
Mayor Dan Sullivan takes the poor ranking in stride. He calls Anchorage a casual city because of not only the climate, but also because of the rugged, gritty work that people do in that weather.
"We feel very comfortable dressing down, and at the same time, being comfortable in the climate," said Sullivan, who wore a sport coat, dress shirt and Jerry Garcia tie to work Thursday. He joked he tries to dress "semi-mayoral on a daily basis."
But that doesn't mean you won't see Alaskans dressed to the nines at social events.
Sullivan notes that Anchorage was named No. 1 for jobs by Forbes this year, and the best winter city in America by livability.com. "We'll take the accolades along with the humorous other rankings."
For the record, the Travel and Leisure poll put New York City at the top for fashion.
"When you go to New York ... you're just happy to be in New York and you want to dress to impress," said Anchorage DJ Scott Root, who was manning his friend's hot dog stand in downtown Anchorage on Thursday. "There's a lot more fancier stuff there."
But in Anchorage, "it's all outdoors," Root said.
"I think we'd be embarrassed if we were on the top of the list," Fried said. "Actually, I think we're proud where we are."
Rich Beattie, executive director of travelandleisure.com, says he doesn't believe the low style ranking is necessarily a bad thing for Anchorage.
He said he's been to Anchorage and throughout Alaska, and the areas have so much going for them. In fact, poll voters placed Anchorage at No. 4 for the city with the best peace and quiet. It also ranked high for best summer and offbeat travel and pretty good for Fourth of July travel.
"I think they are reasons that people travel to certain cities, and it's not necessarily to dress up and be stylish and hang out with stylish people," Beattie said.