Traditional emacs color configuration no longer works since 12.04

Hi,

I notice that the emacs color configuration behavior has changed since 12.04.
My 10+ years of emacs color configuration is now broken, and nowhere did I found on the internet talking about such change.

To duplicate:

$ cat > ~/.Xdefaults
Emacs.Foreground: honeydew
Emacs.Background: black
Emacs*cursorColor: yellow

Then start emacs with

emacs -q --no-site-file &

under X.

emacs should start with the designated color, however, in Ubuntu 12.04, it will always start black on white.

Please verify.

Thanks

 emacs_23.3+1-1ubuntu9.1
 emacs23_23.3+1-1ubuntu9.1
 emacs23-bin-common_23.3+1-1ubuntu9.1
 emacs23-common_23.3+1-1ubuntu9.1
 emacsen-common_1.4.22ubuntu1

$ apt-cache policy emacs
emacs:
  Installed: 23.3+1-1ubuntu9.1
  Candidate: 23.3+1-1ubuntu9.1
  Version table:
 *** 23.3+1-1ubuntu9.1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     23.3+1-1ubuntu9 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages