Nautilus fails to manage desktop

["Todd A. Jacobs" <nospam@codegnome.org>]

I'm running nautilus 2.20.0-6, and after a recent reboot nautilus is
refusing to manage the desktop. I've tried killing nautilus, removing
~/.nautilus and ~/.gconf/apps/nautilus before relaunching it manually,
but it simply refused to show the contents of ~/Desktop on the desktop.

gconf-editor shows that /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop is
enabled, so that doesn't seem to be the issue, either.

What else can I do to restore my desktop icons and allow nautilus to
manage the desktop?

-- 
"Oh, look: rocks!"
	-- Doctor Who, "Destiny of the Daleks"