Uncas Thinking: A ground war in Iraq would lead to 100 US deaths and 500 wounded every month, President Obama told a private meeting of news columnists earlier this week. He said the cost in lives and money was the compelling reason he is not answering the call of war hawks to send troops to fight the Islamic State.

The session just before the Republican debate Tuesday night was supposed to be off the record, but the secrecy was blown when David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote about what the president is “thinking.”

Ignatius writes that about the only thing that would get Obama to change his mind “would be a big, orchestrated terrorist incident that so frightened the public that it began to prevent the normal functioning of America. At that point, Obama might decide there was no alternative to taking ownership of the Middle East mess with tens of thousands of U.S. troops.”

Homeland: Enrique Marquez, the neighbor of the San Bernardino terrorist couple, has been arrested and charged with providing material support, including buying the assault rifles used to kill 14 people in a state social services building.

Investigators say Marquez plotted with Syed Farook to commit terrorist attacks in 2011 and 2012 that were never executed.

An assistant US attorney said in a statement that Marquez’s “prior purchase of the firearms and ongoing failure to warn authorities about Farook’s intent to commit mass murder had fatal consequences.”

Death Rate: For the first time the rate of automobile accident deaths is roughly the same as the number of gun deaths in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The change is largely the result of safer cars and a dramatic drop in the number of accident fatalities since the 1950s. In 2014 gun deaths actually outnumbered auto deaths in 21 states.

Heat Wave: The temperature in New York this morning is 50; Boston; 48; Washington, 46. Temperatures will drop for a couple of days but it could be 60 on Christmas Day.

It’s warm, but it’s not global warming. The combination of an “arctic oscillation” and a strong El Nino system are responsible for the unusually warm temperatures in the East, according to the national Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

The arctic Oscillation traps cold air up north, kind of the reverse of a Polar Vortex, while the El Nino produces warmer water temperatures in the Pacific. The combination is making 2015 the warmest year on record and if continues into the new year, 2016 could be even warmer.

Politics: Russian President Vladimir Putin says he kind of likes Donald Trump. “He is a bright and talented person without any doubt,” Putin said in his annual press conference. He called Trump “the absolute leader of the presidential race.”

Ignoring for a moment that Putin took Crimea, fed the civil war in Ukraine, and is fighting in support of the Syrian dictator, Trump said, “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”

Police Blotter: Israeli model Bar Rafaeli, one of the most famous figures in the world, was arrested in her home country and charged with evading millions of dollars (shekels) in income taxes. The charges claim Rafaeli falsely claimed she lived outside the country and also dodged paying taxes on perks such as luxury accommodations and car services.

Karma: Immediately after the arrest of price-gouging pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli he became a national punch line. Shkreli is the charmer who raised the price of a life saving drug from $13.50 a pill to $750.

Shkreli, who is accused of running his companies like a Ponzi scheme, taking money from one to pay the debts of another, seems incapable of doing anything likable. He paid millions for the only existing copy of an album by the group Wu-Tang Clan and enraged fans when he said he had no plans to even listen to it.

Word is that Shkreli’s lawyer will bill $10,000 an hour and when he’s in prison he’ll have to pay $5,000 for a bar of soap.

-30-