It doesn’t get much better than this. Monday morning’s view of Natural Arch in the Daniel Boone National Forest:

Human conservative news aggregator Matt Drudge blazes this headline atop his popular website this afternoon:

The headline links to a story by Drudge. The first two paragraphs:

“Satan has his sights on the United States of America!” Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has declared.

“Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”

When did Santorum make these comments? Yesterday? Saturday? Last week?

How about 2008? The comments were made during an address at Florida’s Ave Maria University nearly three years ago, a fact that Drudge doesn’t point out until the third paragraph. These remarks were made by Santorum the former Senator, not Santorum the presidential candidate. That doesn’t change the scope of the comments, but it is a distinguishing point that needs to be made.

A couple of things are obvious with this: One is that Matt Drudge’s sellout to Mitt Romney is becoming oh-so-clear. This story, headlined as though it were major news, is nothing more than an attack on the man who has suddenly become a major threat to Romney. There isn’t really anything wrong with Drudge’s support for Romney. He’s a shaper of opinions and his preference is Romney. Big deal.

But what is perhaps a big deal is that Drudge, who has so consistently decried the liberal bias of the mainstream news media over the years, is engaging in the same behaviors he has criticized in the past. And that makes him little more than a hypocrite.

The second thing that is obvious about this, and this is much more alarming, is that in this story you have one of the nation’s most influential conservatives mocking Santorum for his religious views. You don’t have to be the most devout Christian in the Sunday school congregation to believe that satan is “as a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom he may devour” as the apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5:8.

Santorum’s remarks, in which he said that Satan “attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions,” were nearly forgotten until bloggers pulled his speech transcript from the dusty archives over the weekend and used it to bolster their argument that he’s unfit to be a legitimate candidate. Outside The Beltway’s James Joyner proclaimed that Santorum is as crazy as Michele Bachmann; another blog declared that Santorum will “get us into another holy war,” and plenty of others said plenty of other things. That led to Drudge picking up their lead and running with it today.

I don’t agree with all of Santorum’s speech. For instance, he said that once the devil crumbled America’s institutions, he went on to add:

And so what we saw this domino effect, once the colleges fell and those who were being education in our institutions, the next was the church. Now you’d say, ‘wait, the Catholic Church’? No. We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.

There are a lot of problems in the modern, mainstream protestant church, no doubt. But catholicism has more than its fair share of problems. The pedophilia scandal has done more to discredit Christianity than all the problems of all the protestant denominations combined.

But the point is that it isn’t like Santorum is off his rocker. The notion that Satan is constantly on the attack — especially against God-fearing people (though I sorta doubt you can refer to America as a God-fearing nation these days) — is a commonly held view amongst the tens of millions of people who call themselves Christians . . . at least, it used to be a commonly-held view.

I have no intentions of voting for Santorum and I don’t think he would make a particularly good president, but one thing I admire about him is his willingness to stand unflinchingly on his beliefs and in defense of his Christian faith. For that, he has been scorned already, and will be scorned all the more as he continues to establish himself as a frontrunner in the Republican field. In the unlikely event that he captures the nomination, we will see an attack on traditional Christianity unlike any we have ever seen before.

But that isn’t news to most people. Most people expect that. But most people don’t expect it from conservatives. That isn’t to say that conservatives are any more religious than Democrats — or that Democrats are any less religious than conservatives; we know that in many instances that simply isn’t true. But the belittling of the faith is a banner that has traditionally been taken up by liberals, not conservatives.

And when one of the nation’s leading conservative prognosticators grabs hold of that banner himself — mocking a candidate’s religious views to promote his own political ideas — it becomes obvious we’ve slid a lot further down the road towards Christian persecution than many of us would like to believe.

The sun came out this morning and illuminated brilliant winter landscapes across the Cumberland Plateau. Snow showers continued into the night last night. Final, verified snow totals range as high as 8 inches in very isolated spots around Oneida, Tenn., with widespread 4-5 inch totals ranging about 10-15 miles on either side of the TN-KY border, to about 1 inch of snow towards the south end of Scott and Fentress counties.

A few photos snapped this morning around the homestead before the late February sun began to quickly eat away at the snow:

Moderate snow is tapering off to light snow across much of the northern Cumberland Plateau and will slowly come to an end over the next couple of hours from west to east as the main convective activity moves out and gives way to a few lingering snow showers.

Snow accumulations appear to be highest right along the TN-KY border and into southeastern Kentucky, as was expected, with significantly less snow just a few miles away.

In West Oneida, snow accumulations on elevated surfaces is approaching 4 inches, putting it solidly within the 3-5 inches forecast by the National Weather Service. Further south in Scott County, less than 2 inches of snow is being reported. Roads are slick across the region but should start to improve before we lose the last remaining light of this Sunday afternoon. If the ground temperature can sufficiently cool as temperatures drop into the mid 20s tonight, road conditions could become a big issue overnight as things freeze.

Most churches across the region have canceled Sunday evening worship services and the Scott County Sheriff’s Department is reporting that it has dispatched additional deputies with 4wd vehicles to assist stranded motorists and answer calls in remote areas where slick roads pose a bigger problem. There has been one serious accident reported that is related to the weather.

The outcome of today’s storm is the reason I said I defer to the official forecasts of the NWS. Meteorologists didn’t change the forecast for today for the same reason they didn’t start to mention a winter storm a few days ago when the models were clearly in agreement on the possibility: forecasts aren’t made on a knee-jerk reaction. But last night, the very same models that had locked on to the potential for a winter storm began to significantly back off the idea, indicating that the shortwave energy on the northern and southern branches of the jet stream would not phase, which would produce less precipitation, less dynamic cooling, and send the actual storm system further to the south.

As it turned out, the system did phase — but late. With the exception of the northern plateau and parts of southeastern Kentucky, this system did not produce as it was expected to just 24 hours ago. Most places between Cookeville and Nashville, which were expected to pick up 2-4 inches of snow, picked up almost nothing, and the same was true for much of Kentucky, as well. Even along the plateau, there were areas that didn’t receive winter storm warning-criteria snowfall. The heavier snows (typically, around 4 inches is what you think of when thinking winter storm in Tennessee) were limited to the area within 20 miles or so of the Kentucky border on the Tennessee side.

On the other hand, if this system had been as strong as originally modeled, the northern plateau would have really been hammered and things would have been even worse than they were originally forecast to be.

The National Weather Service field offices in Morristown, Nashville and Jackson, Ky., have each issued winter storm warnings for the general northern Cumberland Plateau region. Locally, the NWS office in Morristown continues to forecast 3-5 inches and has bumped up the rain-to-snow transition to 10 a.m. The Nashville office is also forecasting 3-5 inches, while the Jackson, Ky., office is forecasting 2-4 inches, with up to 6 inches across the highest elevations.

I don’t see it, for reasons mentioned in last night’s post, and the fact that radar and surface analysis this morning lend themselves to most of those reasons.

But there is a reason those guys are the pros and I’m the guy posting from his La-Z-Boy in flannel britches, so I’ll always defer to their forecasts.

For the third time this season, Oneida came from behind in the fourth quarter to defeat Sunbright tonight, 59-56. The win advances the Indians to the District 4-A championship game for the first time since 2004.

Meanwhile, Scott High led Alcoa for a half, but the top-seeded Tornadoes outscored the Highlanders 31-13 in the second half to win, 53-39.

The Highlanders will face CAK in Monday’s consolation game in Loudon. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. Scott earned a berth in the Region 2-AA tournament with a 54-48 win over Kingston Friday evening. The Highlanders will be on the road in the first round of that tourney, against either the No. 1 or No. 2 seed from District 3-AA, depending on the outcome of Monday’s consolation game. Meanwhile, Alcoa will face No. 3 Stone Memorial in the championship game Tuesday at 8 p.m. The Panthers upset No. 2 CAK this evening, 77-68.

In girls’ basketball, Oneida’s Lady Indians will face Oakdale in the District 4-A consolation game in Wartburg Monday at 6:30 p.m. Oneida lost to Oliver Springs 32-29 on Friday. The Lady Bobcats will face Wartburg for the district title Monday, beginning at 8 p.m. The Lady Indians will be on the road for the first round of the Region 2-A title later next week, against either the No. 1 or No. 2 seed from District 3-A.

Scott’s Lady Highlanders saw their season come to a disappointing close Thursday in Loudon, where No. 2 Alcoa raced to a big first half lead and held on for a 63-43 win, eliminating Scott from the postseason. Alcoa lost to Stone Memorial tonight, 43-42, and will face Kingston in the District 4-AA consolation game on Monday. The district title game, set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, will be between No. 1 Loudon and No. 2 Stone Memorial.

Back to Oneida’s boys. The Indians will be facing a Wartburg team that looked awfully impressive today against Jellico, defeating the No. 5 Blue Devils 80-63. Alex Fountain may the top junior in all of Tennessee Class A basketball and scorched an Oneida team that plays excellent defense the last time the two teams met, scoring 17 in the second quarter alone after Oneida got into some foul trouble that messed up the Indians’ defensive gameplan.

Wartburg is the only team to sweep Oneida this season. The key for Oneida will be staying out of foul trouble, and scoring some points from the perimeter. Sunbright’s gameplan tonight was to play a zone defense that sold out on stopping the Indians inside (Jake Wright finished with 18, but it was a struggle, as he was limited to four points in the first half) and praying that Oneida didn’t hit its outside looks. The Indians didn’t, hitting just four of 21 (19%) from 3-point range. But the Tigers probably didn’t count on a season-best game from Clay Jeffers, who came off the bench to score 20, repeatedly nailing mid-range jumpers to keep the Indians in the game.

Of course, to be fair, Oneida would have probably won fairly comfortably if Kyle Gunter hadn’t had a career night, hitting 50% from 3-point range and finishing with 31 points.

It’s good to see this Oneida team advance to the championship game. They deserve it. Jake Wright has been a model sportsman during his 4-year high school career and will have a shot to wind it up by playing for a district championship. All in all, the Oneida team is made up of players who are good kids and just fun to watch. Can they beat Wartburg? That’s going to be on a tough task . . . and on Wartburg’s home court to boot (thanks, Morgan County). But they’ll give a good effort. (And, as an aside, Cole West will likely score his 1,000th point Tuesday as only a sophomore. He currently sits at 998.)

I said at the beginning of the season, and still believe, that Oneida is talented enough to make it to the state tournament. Fortunately for everyone in Region 2, Grace Christian — which is one of the top Class A teams in the state this year — is serving the second year of its TSSAA-mandated postseason ban in men’s basketball. The four region teams from District 3 are Rockwood, Greenback, Harriman and Tellico Plains. Rockwood and Tellico Plains are good enough to beat anyone in District 4 — although the District 4 final four are good enough to beat them, as well. The District 3 semifinals will not be until Monday, but Oneida is likely to host either Greenback or Harriman in the first round of the region tournament late next week.

Alabama overcame a shortened bench due to suspensions today to defeat Tennessee 62-50, halting the Vols’ 4-game winning streak.

The loss basically dashes any hope the Vols might have had of making it to a school-record 7th-consecutive NCAA Tournament.

Tennessee didn’t necessarily have to win out to have a shot at the Big Dance, but there was at best room for one loss, and that was assuming a couple of wins in the SEC Tournament. And with Vanderbilt still on the schedule for a March 3 finale at Thompson-Boling Arena . . . well, good luck.

Now the 14-13 Vols are back to needing to finish the season strong to wind up with a better-than-.500 record, which will give them a much better chance of being selected for the NIT.

The remaining games are vs. Ole Miss (Feb. 22), at South Carolina (Feb. 25), at LSU (Feb. 29) and Vanderbilt.

To avoid a must-win game in the first round of the conference tourney in order to finish at or above .500, Tennessee must win two of the next four. At home against Ole Miss and on the road at South Carolina are the two best chances to take games, though the LSU game is certainly a winnable game (it’s just that Tennessee hasn’t proven it can win on the road this year, sans last weekend’s win in Gainesville) and the Vandy game is certainly winnable in the friendly confines of Thompson-Boling Arena.

But take heart, Tennessee fans, it isn’t all bad news today. UConn’s 99-game home win streak was snapped by unranked St. John’s.

UPDATE: Just as further proof of the about-face the models are doing this evening: for days now, it appeared that the northern plateau area (and much of the rest of Tennessee) would receive more than an inch of total precipitation (liquid measurement) with this system. The latest modeling drops barely a quarter-inch. This is only one model run, but it’s the GFS and the NAM telling us this. The European model will run shortly after midnight, which I won’t wait up for, but I would imagine that it’s likely to follow suit . . . because, quite honestly, what’s actually happening outside right now seems to verify what the models are suggesting. As a result, the NWS office in Jackson, Ky., is seriously downgrading accumulation predictions for southeastern Kentucky. The NWS office in Morristown hasn’t really made any major forecast adjustments but has not pulled the trigger on a winter storm warning. I suspect that with the morning forecast update (around 4 a.m. tomorrow), a winter weather advisory will be issued rather than a winter storm warning. In the years I’ve kept up with the weather as a hobby, I’ve seen anything that can go wrong with an anticipated winter weather event in Tennessee do just that, but this is mind-boggling. I said repeatedly that this system had a high bust potential, but I expected a little less cold air than anticipated to be the fly in the ointment. As it stands, the mountains along the TN-NC border look to get hammered while points west (particularly the northern plateau and into Kentucky) look to see little in the way of accumulation, assuming these model runs verify.

The original post follows . . .

No time for a full-fledged update this evening, but the latest model guidance doesn’t look promising for those wanting a winter storm tomorrow . . . and what’s happening outside seems to be coming in line with what the models are now projecting.

Put in its simplest terms, some of the latest data from the numerical guidance models don’t want to phase the disturbances rotating through the region tomorrow, which will lead to a much weaker system. Weaker means further south . . . and weaker also means less precip, as well as much less dynamic cooling. And since this dynamic cooling is relied on to make this a snow event instead of a rain event (we’re still at 48 degrees at 11 p.m. in Oneida), you can guess how it goes from there.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning in southern Kentucky, calling for 4-6 inches of accumulation there, but the NWS offices in Louisville and Nashville are now backing off earlier projections. The winter storm watches in place for the northern Cumberland Plateau and Highland Rim have not yet been upgraded by the NWS offices in Nashville and Morristown. With that said, NWS-Morristown continues to upgrade its forecast for the northern plateau, now predicting 3-5 inches of accumulation, while NWS-Nashville is predicting 3-4 inches. However, that forecast was made before the latest round of modeling data that has come in between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. this evening.

Models do begin to lose some of their usefulness this close to a storm unfolding, but the NAM and GFS are both backing off this storm in a big way. We’ll see how it unfolds . . .

As Kevin Terry, forecaster at Memphiswx.net, said: “[I]f this actually verifies this will be among the worst model performances I can remember in recent memory.”

The northern Cumberland Plateau has been placed under a winter storm watch by the National Weather Service’s Morristown field office:

...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY MORNING THROUGH
SUNDAY EVENING...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MORRISTOWN HAS ISSUED A WINTER
STORM WATCH...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY MORNING THROUGH
SUNDAY EVENING.

* EVENT...SNOWFALL AMOUNTS BETWEEN 2 AND 5 INCHES ARE EXPECTED AT
  THIS TIME...WITH AROUND 6 INCHES IN THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS.

* TIMING...RAIN WILL CHANGE TO MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW BY MID TO
  LATE MORNING SUNDAY...THEN DIMINISH TO FLURRIES BY AROUND
  MIDNIGHT.

* IMPACTS...MODERATE TO HEAVY WET SNOWFALL IS POSSIBLE WITH THIS
  SYSTEM SUNDAY. THE WEIGHT FROM THE WET SNOW MAY DOWN SOME
  TREES AND POWER LINES CAUSING POWER OUTAGES. DRIVING SUNDAY
  AFTERNOON AND NIGHT MAY BECOME HAZARDOUS DUE TO THE SNOW AND
  ICE COVERED ROADWAYS.

Big changes in the forecast this morning, with the NWS now forecasting 2-4 inches of snow accumulation for the northern plateau tomorrow. Forecasters there are still predicting a changeover from rain to snow around lunch time tomorrow.

The NWS in Nashville has added counties along the northern plateau and Highland Rim to a winter storm watch as well, forecasting 2-4 inches of accumulation.

Nothing has really changed on the models.  It’s a waiting game now, with high bust potential either way (more snow than expected or much less snow than expected). Forecasters will have their work cut out for them this evening and tomorrow.