Gold investing even if it's not pure-strain

This blog has long had a tendency to attract seekers of the highly esoteric asset class known as pure-strain gold. The nonexistence of same is probably a good reason to avoid including it in your portfolio, but lest it be said that I am uniformly negative on all matters related to precious metals, I offer (a) Greg Mankiw's thoughtful and moderately receptive assessment of gold investing and (b) a panel discussion on commodity (including gold) ETFs that I moderated as part of my Research magazine job (which is unrelated to this blog); the Web event will be available until Oct. 23 and registration is free.