For example, this one:

There is no effective difference between Cuba's "democratic" government and the evolving rule of Hugo Chavez.

I've never referred to Cuba as a democracy. There are many very effective differences between Venezuela/Chávez and Cuba/Fidel.

The first, easily documentable, and not disputed: Chávez and his allies have won seven elections in the past six years. All serious national and international elections observation organizations and human rights organizations have declared those elections exemplary by universal standards of fairness and freeness.

The second, also easily documentable, is that Chávez has been the most tolerant government leader - in the present and for all of American history - toward dissent. Not a single coup participant went to jail (I think that was a mistake, by the way, because it has only encouraged more, however lame, coup attempts since April 2002). The national government under Chávez has never prosecuted a single journalist, much less imprisoned him or her. These are shining standards of human rights far above those of Cuba, the United States, Mexico, Colombia, etcetera.

On these standards - fair, free, elections and tolerance for free speech and dissent - Chávez is more opposite Castro than Bush or Clinton.

Third, the myth that PDVSA was efficient pre-Chávez has never been backed up by any documents. It's more akin to a specialized public oligarch class saying "rah rah, we're the best" without ever having shown the data to prove it. To the contrary, according to Heinz Dieterich (and by way of demonstrating how claims can and should be sourced, I source mine) the PDVSA is, historically, a steal-ocracy:

Today, only 20 percent of the income of this mega-company goes to the State. Eighty percent goes to “operating costs” that enrich secret accounts of the beneficiaries of this economic cancer. The power of this petroleum “steal-ocracy” has become propped up progressively during recent decades. In 1974, the company delivered 80 percent of its income to the State and kept 20 percent (“operating costs”). In 1990, the ratio tied at 50 to 50 percent and in 1998 it reached the ratio of 80 to 20 percent. It’s logical that they are going to fight to the death – of the nation – to defend “their” black gold.

Today, only 20 percent of the income of this mega-company goes to the State. Eighty percent goes to “operating costs” that enrich secret accounts of the beneficiaries of this economic cancer.

Chávez, in fact, is the first president to try and break the institutionalized theft of this bureaucracy, whose executives have earned seven-figure salaries for sitting around and playing golf on the island of Margarita among other places. That senile old PDVSA executive retirees like Vheadline's Gustavo Coronel run around claiming they were "a model of efficiency" is betrayed by the facts. They were a bloated bureaucracy that took more than they gave. Only under Chávez has true reform begun.

As for your claims of money laundering and criminal activity by Castro in Cuba, you of all people know that if you made the exact same claim about anybody in the United States you would have to document it. Bankers and governments are, as we both know, litigious. That Castro is very unlikely to sue anyone in U.S. court (or get a fair hearing there) should not be cause for us to be lapse about our own ethics. Especially not here at this bright shining light of truth-telling known as The Narcosphere.

I doubt that even the Washington Times would allow you to publish such uncited, unsourced, claims (actually, I take that back: the Sun Myung Daily just might!). But the NYT wouldn't let Forero or Rohter say it without offering at least some shred of documentation.

Here's the challenge: when you offer documentation (as in "this was said according to X source, or found in X document") the credibility of your sources can - and should - also be questioned.

The only case you've made is geographic: Cuba is an Island, therefore it is "Sicily" (a problematic analogy for those of us with as many vowels as consonants in our names, but I'll let that boat sail by). How is Cuba "Sicily" in ways that the Dominican Republic, or the Colombian island of San Andres, or Mexico's Cozumel, or the Dutch Antilles or Bermuda or Grand Cayman are not? Those other ones I mentioned at least have an aggressive off-shore banking industry to help things along, and U.S. regulators instructed to turn a blind eye where Washington "allies" are concerned. How many billions of dollars get laundered on other Caribbean isles compared to the needle in that haystack that you seek regarding Cuba? For me, it's a matter of perspective, and math. It seems to me that you want Cuba to be "bad" for ideological reasons that are irrational in the context of Cuba's actual power and size. You want Venezuela and Chavez to be "bad" too, but you haven't made the case with any facts, just myths and deep, ingrained, ideology-driven fantasies are coloring the kind of sound analysis you so often have regarding Mexico.

And if you still disagree, let's see some cites and documented facts.