Universal Pedagogue

Click on the twinkling star

Try this - E card for Christmas - very cute

A Flash animation

Zachary Taylor, US President

Northerners and Southerners disputed sharply whether the territories wrested from Mexico should be opened to slavery, and some Southerners even threatened secession. Standing firm, Zachary Taylor was prepared to hold the Union together by armed force rather than by compromise.

Born in Virginia in 1784, he was taken as an infant to Kentucky and raised on a plantation. He was a career officer in the Army, but his talk was most often of cotton raising. His home was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and he owned a plantation in Mississippi.

But Taylor did not defend slavery or southern sectionalism; 40 years in the Army made him a strong nationalist.

He spent a quarter of a century policing the frontiers against Indians. In the Mexican War he won major victories at Monterrey and Buena Vista.

President Polk, disturbed by General Taylor's informal habits of command and perhaps his Whiggery as well, kept him in northern Mexico and sent an expedition under Gen. Winfield Scott to capture Mexico City. Taylor, incensed, thought that "the battle of Buena Vista opened the road to the city of Mexico and the halls of Montezuma, that others might revel in them."

"Old Rough and Ready's" homespun ways were political assets. His long military record would appeal to northerners; his ownership of 100 slaves would lure southern votes. He had not committed himself on troublesome issues. The Whigs nominated him to run against the Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, who favored letting the residents of territories decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery.

In protest against Taylor the slaveholder and Cass the advocate of "squatter sovereignty," northerners who opposed extension of slavery into territories formed a Free Soil Party and nominated Martin Van Buren. In a close election, the Free Soilers pulled enough votes away from Cass to elect Taylor.

Although Taylor had subscribed to Whig principles of legislative leadership, he was not inclined to be a puppet of Whig leaders in Congress. He acted at times as though he were above parties and politics. As disheveled as always, Taylor tried to run his administration in the same rule-of-thumb fashion with which he had fought Indians.

Traditionally, people could decide whether they wanted slavery when they drew up new state constitutions. Therefore, to end the dispute over slavery in new areas, Taylor urged settlers in New Mexico and California to draft constitutions and apply for statehood, bypassing the territorial stage.

Southerners were furious, since neither state constitution was likely to permit slavery; Members of Congress were dismayed, since they felt the President was usurping their policy-making prerogatives. In addition, Taylor's solution ignored several acute side issues: the northern dislike of the slave market operating in the District of Columbia; and the southern demands for a more stringent fugitive slave law.

In February 1850 President Taylor had held a stormy conference with southern leaders who threatened secession. He told them that if necessary to enforce the laws, he personally would lead the Army. Persons "taken in rebellion against the Union, he would hang ... with less reluctance than he had hanged deserters and spies in Mexico." He never wavered.

Then events took an unexpected turn. After participating in ceremonies at the Washington Monument on a blistering July 4, Taylor fell ill; within five days he was dead. After his death, the forces of compromise triumphed, but the war Taylor had been willing to face came 11 years later. In it, his only son Richard served as a general in the Confederate Army.

Simnel, Lambert

(sĬm´nel) , c.1475-1525, imposter and pretender to the English throne. Little is known of his early life, but before 1486 he caught the attention of an Oxford priest, Richard Simon or Symonds, who trained him to impersonate Richard, duke of York, younger son of Edward IV, who is now thought to have died, or been murdered, while imprisoned in the Tower of London. The plan was changed, however, and in 1486 Simon took Simnel to Ireland, claiming that he was Edward, earl of Warwick, another Yorkist claimant to the throne. A number of Yorkist adherents rallied to his cause, and in May, 1487, Simnel and his supporters, led by John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln (see under Pole , family), crossed to England and were defeated by the forces of Henry VII at the battle of Stoke (June, 1487). Simnel was taken prisoner but pardoned and supposedly was employed thereafter as a scullion in the royal kitchen, as a mark of Henry VII's lenience.

Christmas Cake recipe

Ensure this cake is made 3 weeks before Christmas, and then ice one week before the occasion.

Ingredients

12 oz plain flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. mixed spice

½ tsp. salt

4 oz candied peel

4 oz cherries

2 lb. Dried fruit

4 oz blanched almonds

4 eggs

4 tbsp. sherry

Finely grated 1 lemon

8 oz margarine

8 oz sugar

1 tbsp. black treacle

 Sieve together all the dry ingredients.

 Mix the peel, fruit, cherries, chopped almonds and lemon rind.

 Whisk the eggs and sherry together.

 Cream the margarine, sugar and black treacle until soft.

 Add the flour and egg mixtures alternately to the margarine.

 Stir in the fruit mixture.

 Put into an 8-9 inch tin, lined with greaseproof paper round the sides and at the bottom. Tie a double band of brown paper round the outside of the rim, standing well up above the top of it.

 Put in the middle of a hot oven. Bake for 31/4-31/2 hours at gas mark 3 for the first 11/2 hours, and then decrease to gas mark 2 for the remainder.

 Cool the cake in the tin, then store in an airtight container.

And back to normal !

Well that was an interesting experiment

Albeit a rather unsuccessful one !

What if we send a web page ny Email

_____

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Scientists Find Cache of Dodo Bird Bones

Scientists Find a Major Cache of Bones of the Long-Extinct Dodo Bird

A selection of discovered Dodo bones are seen on this photo provided by the Naturalis Museum in Leiden, the Netherlands, Friday, Dec, 23, 2005. Last October 28, a Dutch-Mauritian research team discovered Dodo remains on the southeastern part of Mauritius, the material's age is estimated at 2000 to 3000 years. (AP Photo/ Naturalis Museum)

By TOBY STERLING Associated Press Writer

The Associated Press The Associated Press

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands Dec 23, 2005 - Scientists said Friday they found a major cache of bones and likely complete skeletons of the long-extinct Dodo bird, which could help them learn more about the lost creature's physique and habits.

The find is significant because no complete skeleton of a single Dodo bird has ever been retrieved from a controlled archaeological site in Mauritius. The last known stuffed bird was destroyed in a 1755 fire at a museum in Oxford, England, leaving only partial skeletons and drawings of the bird to go on.

The bird was native to Mauritius when no humans lived there but its numbers rapidly dwindled after the arrival of Portuguese and Dutch sailors in the 1500s. The last recorded sighting of a live bird was in 1663.

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The international team of researchers found the bones on a sugar cane plantation on Mauritius, located in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Madagascar.

They presented their findings at the National Museum of Natural History in the Dutch city of Leiden Friday.

"We have found 700 bones including bones from 20 Dodo birds and chicks but we believe there are many more at the site," said Kenneth Rijsdijk, a Dutch geologist from the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, who led the dig.

DNA material from other Dodos exists, but Rijsdijk said more and better samples could be retrieved from the latest find, estimated to be 2,000 to 3,000-years-old.

Retrieving DNA means that the Dodo can be better placed in relation to other species. But recreating a live animal from its DNA remains in the realm of science fiction, Rijsdijk said.

The Dodo's name comes from a Portuguese word for "fool," so named because the bird showed no fear of humans and couldn't fly, making it easy prey for the colonists. The Dutch called it the Walgvogel, or "nasty bird" because it tasted so bad.

Modern scientists understand the Dodo more favorably. They believe the bird didn't fear humans because it had no natural predators on Mauritius and had lost the ability to fly because it was so large: adults grew to around a meter (yard) high and weighed around 20 kilograms, or about 50 pounds, considerably bigger than a pelican.

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To succeed one must first try

Text in font Algerian

And then some Berlin Sans

But what do we get?

and here we are again

It had its glory days at the end of the nineties with the advent of the internet. Then it died its death in the early twenties when the bubble burst. Now, thanks to high-speed internet services, convergence is firmly back on the business agenda.

We are testing mobile logging interface (this is the royal we, of course)

Good morning, I am honored

Good morning, I am honored to follow Minister Ngozi. We salute her efforts to develop a Nigerian program for promoting development and reducing poverty.

We are impressed by the reform agenda put forward by the Minister and her team, including Nigeria's initiatives on budget transparency and improved fiscal management. We look forward to supporting these efforts.