Widgets On Desktop

You could use Amnesty Widget Browser which allows you to keep widgets on the desktop in whatever window layer you like and make it semi-transparent or lock it in place. It is $19.95 but there is a free trial.

 

Another option is to use Yahoo widgets in stead of Apple's... they usually live on your desktop...

 

Any version on Tiger can do this. Just for clarification, you may put widgets on the desktop by:

Going to the widget bar in the dashboard.
Clicking and dragging on, but not letting go of, a widget in the widget bar.
Pressing F12 then dropping the widget.

But as you said, it hovers over all windows. I too recommend the Amnesty Widget Browser.

 

And it doesn't remember that setting, either. Once you restart (or bring up Dashboard again), it drops off the desktop and back into Dashboard.

 

Open the Terminal and type defaults write com.apple.dashboard devmode YES and press Return. Then logout and log back in again. Now debugging mode is activated. To get a widget off of the Dashboard and onto your desktop, just do the following:

Activate Dashboard by pressing F12 (or whatever key you've assigned to Dashboard).
Begin dragging the widget.
Press F12 again, before letting up on the mouse button.
Drop the widget wherever you want it.
You can do the same thing in reverse to drag the widget back onto the Dashboard. Also of interest: while a widget is frontmost, you can press Command-R to reload it. (This may be necessary if a widget is buggy and gets messed up somehow.) There's even a nifty Core Image-based twirl effect to accompany the reload.