AFT (Water Carrier) and what people believe

Over at Rant Your Head Off, there have been several articles about the Anonymous Fortune Teller, who we've called AFT.

AFT himself started commenting over there feeling I'd chased him away. I tried to apologize. To make up, I'll give him his own article here...

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At Rant, he expressed annoyance that I'd named him AFT, forgetting he'd said it himself:

Hi from your anonymous fortune teller.

so I feel justified, if not vindicated. I picked "ferret" out of a hat as well, without consulting the designee. Any other Anonymous should be wary if you leave me to the handle giving.

He says he'd rather be called "Water Carrier", and makes the following claims:

1. I almost made it to the Olympics (with a few 1,000 others…)
   
2. I rode with Lance (like a few 1,000 others…)
   
3. I was “in” the Tour (as a rider you ask?)
   
4. I race (what license, you scream!)
   
5. I have contacts who tell me inside scoop.
   
6. I rode with Jan (to hell?)
   
7. Riders have told me about their doping in ways not to endanger themselves(some of it rather amateurish)
8. I have never doped (unless you count caffeine)

For #1, he doesn't say it he got to trials or was ranked for possible selection;
for #2, it might in be the Tour of Roses;
for #3, he's right, we don't know if it was as a rider; nor do we know he's an American;
for #4, he might race SCCA automobiles, or cross-country skiing;
for #5, he may live near a coffeehouse in Girona;
for #6, I don't know what to think;
for #7, hardly surprising;
for #8, who cares unless he's trying to make us think he's not Frankie;

Rant made some guesses, but I'm too lazy to play, and I'm not sure how much I care. The hearts of AFT's claims are interesting rumour, but the import is not clear.

• The "word" is that Floyd blood-doped: there's no evidence of this, but the claim is that this is widely believed in the peloton. There's not easy way for an outsider to validate the claim.
  
• And the blood was contaminated in some way that led to the positive: the science seems to be arguing against this possibility. Given the dubious science used in doping, that is not as strong a counter-argument as it might be. Almost anything could have happened, I suppose.
• There is an Illuminati running American cycling, with Weisel, Lance and Och at the top of the pyramid. You're either on board with them, or not: Let's pretend this is true.
  
• Landis is getting the bum's rush because he's pissed off the conspiratorial Powers of American Cycling by not playing ball with Lance and the Discovery team: Which doesn't compute with the rumours that Lance has given money to the defense, or even with the supportive co-appearance on Larry King. If Lance had wanted hang him out to dry, he could have skipped that show easily enough. Why would these Illuminati want to destroy an American TdF champion, for whatever reason? How can this be good for their long-term investments in the sport and their teams?
  

I said in a comment to his recent post that his stories have the fascination of Area 51 UFO legends. It is not so much what the truth of the story is (which may not be known, ever), but the way they seem like they could be believable. How and why people might believe them are interesting reflections of those believers. Why they might be rejected reflects the worldviews of those people as well.

My opinion about the the whole thing is that circumstances are far more mundane than a grand conspiracy. I've always leaned towards the "he didn't do anything wrong" position, and nothing has moved me from that posture. This may mark me as naive, but so be it.

It seems most likely to me to multiply simple human error by bureucratic entrenchment. Something wrong happened at the lab that wasn't recognized, and an initial positive was made. This rapidly escalated to a point where the heavy rhetoric was employed. It became impossible for any other explanation to be considered by the officialdom, and the same problems were experienced to get the expected results in the B sample. After more spouting, calmer heads prevail in some organizations, but USADA is saddled with a charged case it feels it cannot lose for all kinds of political reasons. This leads them to progressively harden their position into near absurdity.

That's where we are now, I think.

Landis can still get screwed unless he comes up with concrete evidence of problems at the lab, for which he may need discovery he may not get.

It will help if there are provable inconsistencies in the interpretations of the tests as seen at various places by the labs with expertise. Maybe there cases, perhaps Turnbull, that were judged negative or inconclusive by some other labs, but would have been positive by the criteria that appear to have been used in his case. That's tricky -- a narrow view of the rules could say that the Lab gets its own criteria, and the LNDD is entitled to use the set it uses.

It might help Landis can find evidence of an LNDD operator spending August holiday in a Hamburg brothel paid for by some Swiss account, but that seems pretty unlikely.

A lot is going to depend on the neutral arbitrator -- if it is someone who is concerned about the truth, he'll be in better stead than if it is someone with a reputation for strict constructionism.

As for AFT/Water Carrier, I'm happy to have him around. What he says makes us all think, and that is rarely a bad thing to do.

TBV