Happy George Washington Christmas, readers! I think today is the holiday where you put presents under the wooden teeth and give thanks for our electoral system or something. We'd have posted something earlier, but suffice it to say that the highway system in Eastern Iowa is a finely tuned killing machine that may claim thousands today. Or, as stupid people put it whenever they have to drive in bad weather, "My car skidded on the highway, so I TOTALLY ALMOST DIED."

But I digress. It's time to finish up voting on the Blackies, and we've saved the best category, Best Post, for last. We enjoyed an incredible year of writing from not only we three Musketeers, but from our readers as well. To that end, we'll be nominating six posts for best of the year, listed below in chronological order. Since I'm wildly uncomfortable about nominating myself for anything, there will be no OPS articles listed. These six were better anyway. Anyway, as always, vote below.

Are You There, Cyclone Fan? It's Me, Jebus - JebusHChrist

I'm coming to Ames this weekend and I'm bringin' hell with me. We're going to join the rest of the Iowa fans (which will number near 50,000) and we will tailgate at your asphalt shitbucket of a stadium. There will be booze, flip cup (instructions included since you don't even know what it is you fucking douchebags), and fun. After the tailgate, we will go in to watch the game which will be a beating like you haven't suffered at our hands since the days of Fry. But this isn't about that, it's about this. I'm going to fuck your momma.

Blogpoll: Week 8, Shakespeare Edition - JebusHChrist

Sir John Falstaff -- Les Miles, LSU

• I find you to be an unsavory character. Your name makes you royalty, but there's nothing regal about you. You're a slovenly drunkard and a bad influence. If I were King, I wouldn't want my people anywhere near you, or your home. What makes you dangerous is the fact that under all of... that, you're quite powerful. You don't just destroy men, but somehow through sheer grandiloquence and your bombastic nature you convince them to destroy themselves. All the while, you're grinning knowingly and having a grand time. You've seen what it takes to be King but you know the crown will never fit you.

Fake Kirk Ferentz - Bellanca

"We go through life and the narrative of our lives, if we are achievers and doers and the people who must suffer the rants and envy of non-doers, the narrative of our lives is this act of becoming.  We are in search of ourselves, becoming some vestige of everything we wanted to be, back when we were 23 and our wives looked at us not knowing the pattern of time, equivocation, the accumulations of mundane imperfections.  We hold, privately and dear, this act of becoming.  You have held dear the model of coach that Michigan now seeks.  If you say no to this, you may get a call next year from Penn State, because there's no way that they extend Paterno.  But maybe not.  If you say no, you are closing a door and locking it and you need to be comfortable that here, Iowa City, is where you will be."

BTB Basketball Poll: Iowa Caucuses Edition - Hawkeye State

Northwestern is Dennis Kucinich.  Despite the fact they have no chance of winning, they show up every year.  Nobody questions their intelligence, but when they tell you they've seen a UFO, you know they aren't kidding.  Undersized.  Last names are difficult to spell.  Supporters are totally into World of Warcraft.  They also get to go home to a beautiful wife, though nobody understands why she would ever get with them.  Must be the money.

BTB Basketball Poll: Robert Goulet Edition - Hawkeye State

Indiana: These cats can ball.  Everyone's giving them the business because Sampson broke some rules.  But let me tell you something, amigo:  Rules are made to be broken.  There was this time in 1962, I was in the Broadway production of Camelot with Richard Burton.  One night after a show, Rick and I met up with Mickey Rooney for a late drink.  Well, boys will be boys, one thing led to another, bada bing, bada boom, Rooney pistol whips the bartender.  This bozo is talking about pressing charges and calls in a cop, so we planted heroin behind the bar and got the bartender hauled off.  We drank every drop of booze in that joint.  The next day, Rick met Liz Taylor.  The rest, as they say, is history.

So, anywho, these cats can ball.

You Been Posterized - ChitownHawkeye

(click for giant awesomeness)