The main argument for gold is that George Bush can't print more gold to pay for his wars and mismanagement. People start talking about gold (and other alternatives) when they lose confidence in a government's ability to responsibly manage it's currency.

When a currency starts losing their value, people (everyone from Bill Gates to Joe Schmoe) don't want to store their savings/value in that currency. Gold has historically been a reliable alternative, because it is a fairly finite supply, easily storable and durable (unlike a silo of oats), fairly safe from counterfeit/fraud risk, portable (unlike real estate), divisible (unlike paintings for instance) and fairly liquid (many buyers and sellers worldwide from small to large scale).

Other commodities can also conceivably be instruments of storing value, each with various pros and cons. The idea is to flee the localized environment of irresponsibility/risk--not to make a great amount of profit--although that will happen if there is a panic/collapse. But even most goldbugs understand that the chaos from a true panic is pretty undesirable and don't pray for it.

Anyways, the rise in gold over the last two years has mirrored the decline in the dollar almost perfectly. If you factor out the decline if the dollar, gold has basically stayed flat. That stability is what people want when they stop trusting the US (or any other currency-issuing government.)

As to how various other instruments compare to dollars, that is a complex subject. But regarding bonds, they are just a kind of loan denominated in a specific currency--and are thus very sensitive to the health of that currency as well; regardless of whether the entity receiving the loan is a high-risk or low risk venture. Does that make sense?

Anyways, good luck and I encourage you to actively educate yourself about economics. It can be a very fascinating subject.