Galileo Was So Wrong!

The great thing about teh GoogleTubes is that it allows crazies to easily find each other.

Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right is one of the most unique and penetrating books you will ever read. Now complete in Volumes I and II, authors Robert Sungenis and Robert Bennett take you on a tour of science and history the likes of which you would have never believed possible unless it were told to you in detailed and graphic form. Has modern science led us down the primrose path and convinced us of something that they cannot prove and that is in actuality false? Were the Fathers, the Medievals, our popes and cardinals of the 17th century correct in believing that the Earth, based on a face value reading of Scripture, was standing still in the center of the universe? Come with an open mind and allow these two authors to show you facts and figures that have been hidden from the public for a very long time. This is a page turner that you will find hard to put down, once you get riveted by the astounding material these authors have assembled for you. Prepare yourself, however. Your world will be rocked, literally and figuratively. Not only will you see from Volume I how modern science has documented for us in bold fashion that the Earth is motionless in space and occupies the center of the universe (yet have done an equally remarkable job in keeping these important facts out of our educational system), you will now see in Volume II how deeply the popes of the 17th century were involved in condemning heliocentrism, guiding the process step-by-step and finally castigating it as "formally heretical." You will also see how effusive is the data in Scripture that teaches a geocentric universe in the most detailed exegesis of Holy Writ ever presented to the public on this topic. Lastly, Volume II offers detailed and comprehensive documentation of the consensus of the Church Fathers and Medieval theologians on geocentrism. It also covers all the statements and teachings of modern popes and councils, such as Gregory XVI, Benedict XIV, Pius VII, Leo XIII, Benedict XV, The Council of Trent, Vatican I, Vatican II, and a special section on John Paul II in his re-examination of the Galileo case. These are facts and analyses that every Catholic should avail himself. The most important thing you will receive from this astounding study is a very close relationship with God. For once you see that God, his Church, and Holy Scripture have given us the unadulterated truth, proven by modern science itself, you will have no choice but to put yourself completely in His trust and care for everything else in your life.

And here I thought I was the center of the universe. Maybe I need to write a book to prove it.

Prostitution

The Post has an interesting article up on "Five myths about prostitution."

2. Men visit sex workers for sex.

Often, they pay them to talk. I've been studying high-end sex workers (by which I mean those who earn more than $250 per "session") in New York, Chicago and Paris for more than a decade, and one of my most startling findings is that many men pay women to not have sex. Well, they pay for sex, but end up chatting or having dinner and never get around to physical contact. Approximately 40 percent of high-end sex worker transactions end up being sex-free. Even at the lower end of the market, about 20 percent of transactions don't ultimately involve sex.

Figuring out why men pay for sex they don't have could sustain New York's therapists for a long time. But the observations of one Big Apple-based sex worker are typical: "Men like it when you listen. . . . I learned this a long time ago. They pay you to listen -- and to tell them how great they are." Indeed, the high-end sex workers I have studied routinely see themselves as acting the part of a counselor or a marriage therapist. They say their job is to feed a man's need for judgment-free friendship and, at times, to help him repair his broken partnership. Little wonder, then, that so many describe themselves to me as members of the "wellness" industry.

I think the assault on Craigslist is misguided. Prostitution is not going to go away. We would be far better off legalizing it and regulating it (and, yes, taxing it). This would allow us to more easily keep women from being abused by pimps and such. I don't think this is the same as condoning the practice. It's recognizing that prostitution is not going away no matter what we do and we're better off conducting it within safe boundaries rather than in the dark.

How Language Shapes How We Think

Interesting, especially the stuff about geographic languages (all directions are given in terms of north/south/east/west, never left/right, for example).

Roald Dahl Was Cursed

Read this fascinating piece on Roald Dahl, author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach amongst many others. I had no clue how rough his life had been.

Dahl had an idyllic childhood until the age of 3, when his older sister suddenly died and was followed, weeks later, by her heartbroken father. This was the beginning of a toxic tsunami of bad luck that would toss Dahl around for the rest of his life. When he was a boy, his nose was cut off in a car accident. (A doctor sewed it back on.) Then he was shipped off to boarding school in England, where he suffered all the traditional miseries. In World War II, he became one of the RAF’s most promising pilots—only to crash his plane, on his first official day of flying, in the Libyan Desert. As he lay there fighting for consciousness—his skull fractured, his spine wrenched out of place, his eyes swollen shut by burns, his poor reattached nose driven back into his face—his airplane’s machine guns, stoked by the heat, started shooting at him. (Dahl later mythologized this, telling people he’d been shot down.)

And there's more. No wonder his stories weren't idyllic.

Weekly Secret

PostSecret

How sad. And how many other gay people feel the same way? I would tell this person that they should come out. First, they don't know how it will affect their family. It might not be that bad. Second, if they do not take it well, it is their problem. No one should have to pretend to be something they are not to spare the feelings of someone else.