Does the effect of gravity actually get from the Sun to the Earth faster
than light?

First, I read that the Sun's photons take something like 8.3 minutes to
traverse the...8.3 light-minute distance to earth (duh), and that this means
the Sun is presently west of it's apparent position by approximately 20 arc
seconds. [Tom Van Flandern:
http://www.metaresearch.org/cosmolog...of_gravity.asp ].

He goes on to say that it is this point--20 arc seconds west of the visible
Sun--toward which earth is being pulled. He supports this with the
following:
Such measurements of Earth's acceleration through space are now easy to
make
using precise timing data from stable pulsars in various directions on the
sky.
Any movement of the Earth in any direction is immediately reflected in a
decreased delay
in the time of arrival of pulses toward that direction,
and an increased delay toward the opposite direction.

The "gravity as geometry" model seems to lack causality, as there is still
no reason why things should fall together. The model relies on gravity to
portray gravity. However, if we are being pulled towards the current
position of the sun, then something is amiss with the idea that the impact
of gravity travels. This might open some wonderfully lucid hallucenogenic
visions of gravity as existing outside time, etc.

So does anyone know of where to get pulsar timing data, or how I might
measure Earth's trajectory?