Via Sullivan comes this map of the world scaled to oil reserves. Helps explain, for one thing, why the Middle East always dominates the foreign policy agenda (it's a bit big, so click on it for a full size view):
It's worth thinking through the fact that we are crushingly dependent on a resource primarily held by Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. That's two countries on the "Axis of Evil," one country we've already had to save from invasion, and then one country that's a primary exporter of fundamentalist Islam and birthed most of the 9/11 hijackers.
