nm-applet causing matacity 100% CPU usage via excessive dialog boxes

metacity uses 100% CPU because "Wireless Network Authentication Required" boxes appear every "few minutes?" and never go away (unless manually closed). Eventually there are hundreds? of them and metacity uses 100% CPU dealing with them.

I don't expect ANY "Wireless Network Authentication Required" box to pop up! I am not trying to authenticate to a wireless network. There doesn't appear to be any non-draconian way to prevent this misbehavior. I do not wish to for instance, "Disconnect".

cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS \n \l

apt-cache policy network-manager <-- does this also provide the applet? if not please fix
network-manager:
  Installed: 0.9.4.0-0ubuntu4.2
  Candidate: 0.9.4.0-0ubuntu4.2
  Version table:
 *** 0.9.4.0-0ubuntu4.2 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.9.4.0-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages