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Lies: They travel halfway round the world before the truth gets its boots on. If you dont tell them, you never have to remember anything. Ask me no questions and I wont tell you any. The year that now comes to an end was, like all years, riddled with them. Grand lies and small ones, grave ones and frivolous ones, true ones and lse ones—check that. They were all lse. Here is a list of some of them that really caught my attention.

It was a lie borne of panic, told to the world via Twitter as former Rep. Anthony Weiner sat alone in his home frantically trying to undo the damage of a mistakenly published dick pic. But he doubled down on it, repeated it in press conferences, and sparked endless useless blogfights over the myriad ways he could have been set up. But he was just taking a picture of his cock, to send to a lady.

In July, wide-eyed sociopath James Murdoch told a Parliamentary inquiry under oath that when he signed off on a $1,000,000 settlement for phonKim Kardashiane hacking a few years ago, he thought the practice was limited to a lone reporter at theNews of the Worldwho had already been dealt with and had no clue that it permeated News Corp.s British newss. Almost immediately,two of his former deputies came forward to call him a liar: They had fully briefed him on evidence that phone-hacking was widespread atNOTW, which was one incentive to quietly settle all the cases coming at them.

In ct, one of them hadhandwritten notes from a meeting with Murdochquoting the scion as saying he wanted to get rid of the wrongdoers in his company long after the only guilty staffer he claims to have known about had been fired. And a contemporaneous memo from a News International lawyer warned of a culture of illegal information access at the company. And emails sent to Murdoch—to which he replied—warned him that the people suing for phone hacking intended to prove that it wasrife throughout the organizationand that the companys line that it was limited to a rogue trader was a lie. In other words, Murdoch lied about knowing that his company was lying.

In the hours after an earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan in March, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant,assured reporters that its damaged reactors werent melting down. He would know, right? Accordingly, TEPCOheld off on pumping seawater into the reactor core to cool it offfor several days, because the procedure—which could have averted a meltdown—would damage the reactor, and why risk those valuable assets unless its absolutely necessary? Anyway, turns out thatthree of the reactors at Fukushima totally 100% melted down.

Herman Cain says he nevergently guided a ladys head to his lap and then offered her a job, never did whatever it was that caused his former employer the National Restaurant Association topay two different co-workers to settle ual harassment claims, andnever had with the woman he knew for 13 years, and occasionally paid money to, and never told his wife about, and who claims to have had a 13-year afir with him. Which is why he dropped out of the race.

He went down with guns blazing! (Turns out he wasnt holding a gun.) Hereached for a gun! (Turns out he wasstraight-up assassinated.) He died in a firefight! (Turns out the firefight was over by the time the SEALs got to bin Ladens bedroom.) He used his wife as a human shield! (Turns out she lunged at the SEALs and survived the assault.) We had real-time visibility of the raid! (Turns out there was a 25-minute gap where the White House had no idea what was happening on the ground.) Wellrelease pictures of his dead body! (Turns out they wont.)Osama bin Laden had ! (This one hasnt been disproved yet, butreally?)

This was uttered by Giuliani ten years ago, but it didnt technically become a lie until June of this year, when hereneged in his promise to conduct the wedding ceremony of his friends, political supporters, and one-time roommates Howard Koeppel and Mark Hsiao as soon as gay marriage was legal in New York.

Kim Kardashians mily claimed that her sham wedding was a strictly non-profit afir, which is trueif you dont count the $10 million budget supplied by E!, the $1.5 million photo licensing deal, and all the free amenities supplied by publicity-hungry vendors.

This claim—that Toyota automobiles were manuctured with an electronic flaw that caused accelerators to depress uncommanded—was finally and incontrovertibly exposed as a lie in February 2011, when NASA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrationreleased a definitive reportdemonstrating that sudden acceleration complaints were likely the result of unintended application of the accelerator rather than...the brake.

Lady Gaga got in an egg before the Grammys and emerged from said egg after being carried on the award show stage by henchmen.She claimed to have spent 72 in the egg. What an odd thing to lie about.

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