It’s a little frustrating that at a time when America could use some explanations about what’s going on with this historic financial crisis, the people best positioned to help are most likely to lie. However, in a strange fit of honesty, a Treasury spokeswoman quoted in this Forbes.com piece said “It’s not based on any particular data point” – referring to the $700 Billion figure being tossed around – adding: “We just wanted to choose a really large number.” Nice. This Wall Street Journal piece points out that if you want some answers, just ask John McCain. Reminding us that aside from the fact that many of his friends on the Straight Talk Express are the same guys that caused this mess, he has the experience of that Keating Five stuff under his belt. The only really sane and comprehensible explanations I’ve seen though, have come from pretty strange sources. First of all, there’s a sort of stick-figure PowerPoint here. Kind of long, but thorough, and easy to follow. This next one is is likely to have porn ads on the page and link to other rather risque stuff, so click at your own risk. It’s a REALLY long, but is a funny and simplistic explanation posted as a forum thread on Imagechan.com (again, probably NSFW).