But We Can’t Let You Actually SEE the Gold: German Parliament Denied Access to Inspect German Gold Reserves Due to ‘Lack of Visiting Rooms’
from Silver Doctors:
 German Federal auditors handed in a report slamming the Bundesbank for not inspecting their foreign held gold reserves to verify their book value. The report says the gold bars “have never been physically checked by the Bundesbank itself or other independent auditors regarding their authenticity or weight.” Instead, it relies on “written confirmations by the storage sites.” The lion’s share of Germany’s gold reserves (nearly 3,400 tons estimated at $190 billion) are housed in vaults of the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of France since the post-war days, when they were worried about a Cold War Soviet invasion. The Bundesbank stated, “There is no doubt about the integrity of the foreign storage sites in this regard”. In contrast with best industry practices Germany’s gold reserves do not seem to be independently verified by a third party. Philipp Missfelder, a politician from Merkel’s own party, has asked the Bundesbank for the right to view the gold bars in Paris and London, but the central bank has denied the request, citing the lack of visitor rooms in those facilities, German’s daily Bild reported. The Bundesbank won’t let German parliament members inspect the German gold vaulted abroad because the central bank vaulting facilities supposedly lack “visiting rooms.“ And yet one of those vaults, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, offers the public tours that include “an exclusive visit to the gold vault”.
Read More @ Silver Doctors:
http://www.silverdoctors.com/german-parliament-denied-access-to-inspect-german-gold-reserves-due-to-lack-of-visiting-rooms/


FLASH: German gold report reveals secret sales that likely were part of swaps
by Chris Powell, GATA:
 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
With the Associated Press report appended here, the German gold audit story has just exploded into the English-language press with some important revelations: The gold vaulted by the German central bank, the Bundesbank, with the Bank of England “has fallen ‘below 500 tons’ due to recent sales and repatriations. …” So despite the lack of official announcement, Germany lately has been selling gold from London — perhaps as part of the secret “strategic activities” grudgingly acknowledged two years ago by the Bundesbank to GATA’s friend, the German financial journalist Lars Schall:
http://www.gata.org/node/9363
The lack of announcement of the sale of the German gold in London suggests that the sale was actually part of a gold swap with another central bank — like the New York Fed. That is, the powerful implication here is that German gold in London was sold at the behest of the United States and in exchange Germany took title to United States gold vaulted in the United States — or title to gold supposedly vaulted in the United States. This way the Bundesbank could continue to claim ownership of the same amount of gold without lying, at least not technically.
Read More @ GATA.org
http://www.gata.org/node/11851

Unfortunately  maximizing  did not do it either

maybe this 'll help

http://au.news.yahoo.com/latest/a/-/latest/15182799/counterfeit-aussie-gold-sold-in-china/

should we go long tungsten

' install unity-2d '  did not do much except for removing some items no longer needed.

' metacity --replace '  gave me a new desktop but Bitcoin was same with no toolbar.

  Going back to           ' unity --reset '    gave me back the familiar desktop and also a second terminal with a Bitcoin specific error:

   ' :~$ metacity --replace
Window manager warning: Invalid WM_TRANSIENT_FOR window 0xc00004 specified for 0xc00002 (bitcoin-qt). '

What does that mean?

As to the link for " laucher-and-window-menu-bar-missing-after-12-04-upgrade '  -  it seems that the people had more problems than me and  that probably needs to be done carefully one by one.

I disagree with my bud ~cypherdoc that anyone should stay away from person-2-person transactions no matter what their position.  This largely because I feel it important to 'work out the bugs' of doing such transactions absent functional exchanges.  Just in case.

That said, it would obviously make sense to be as careful as possible, particularly since BTC is useful for criminals and (possibly) of increasing interest to law enforcement.  Since my BTC and other assets tend to be pretty static I've not done any person-2-person BTC transactions but I intend to if/when I wish to liquidate some BTC (but will likely buy on an exchange if I buy more BTC and the exchanges remain viable.)  Thus, I've put some thought into how I would do things and it is along the lines as follows:

 - outline and document in detail with the other party how things should go ahead of time.  Including:

   - we meet in place which has good video surveillance, security staff, and other people around.  A large corporate campus would be swell, particularly if it is near a bank.
   - I send x-BTC to an address of other's choice (likely something like Instawallet so transactions are reliable without waiting for confirmations.)
   - other gives me {x} $$$  (likely a function of Mt. Gox spot price.)
   - I send another {x} BTC
   - other hands over some more fiat.
   - etc, etc, until transaction is complete.
   - say goodbye.

The step-wise nature of the transaction limites losses should one party run.  Now due to this note, add one more bullet point to the outline.

 - neither party says a peep about anything not necessary for the transaction.  If we want to meet up for a beer several hours later and talk about politics, drugs, guns, etc, fine and good.  My USD will be tucked into bed well before that.  And if the transaction goes the other way, my BTC will similarly be squirreled away in cold storage.

I did  '  unity --reset  '   and it showed errors but I am not in a position to understand these:

      http://paste.debian.net/202767/

Thank you very much for taking the time

We must be getting close with confirmed orders numbering in the 1500's:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=117955.0;topicseen