There are some amazing mysteries in our universe. Crop circles. Ghosts. Atlantis. Aliens. How the hell Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt can afford a $12 million home. And they are all equally unexplainable. Heidi and Spencer – easily the most loathed couple in the U.S. – have been house hunting. And apparently it’s not just for publicity and cheesy photo ops – their realtor confirms that they’re serious buyers and can afford a home they’ve been eyeing in the $12 million range.

We live in a world where Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt can afford to buy a $12 million beach home in Malibu.

We didn’t believe it when we saw the video of the couple we love to hate as they went house shopping yesterday in the Bu. They looked at two homes: the aforementioned $12 mil beach house (also for rent for $90k a month) and a 10,000 sq. ft. estate with an asking price of more than $15 mil.

So we thought it was a big publicity stunt, until we called the realtor who showed the property. Sandro Dazzan says they’re “serious buyers,” although he doesn’t think they’ll pull the trigger right away. Dazzan stunned us when he said they can afford the $12 million beach house right now, but that they’re “at least six months” out from being able to afford the bigger house.

[From TMZ]

This information makes me physically ill. Indescribably so. We are undergoing a serious housing crisis, where all sorts of hardworking people are losing their homes. Even some relatively wealthy people are experiencing foreclosures. And yet Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt can afford to drop $12 million. It just makes me utterly nauseous.

It does make sense that they’ve got a lot of cash stored up. Spencer Pratt is constantly demanding that people give him luxury goods and services for free. To be fair, he’s normally turned down (and generally laughed at along the way). But I assume that if he demands a hundred people give him something for free, 2 or 3 probably will, and that can add up. And he’s egotistical enough to go for it. Great example: Heidi and Spencer’s proposed trip to Iraq, courtesy of Senator John McCain.

The McCain camp isn’t confirming or denying that they’re helping “Hills” hellions Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt arrange a trip to Iraq, but there’s a new twist in the plan that has yet to be addressed.

Sources close to the couple say that Pratt is insisting, per usual, that they receive comped first-class plane tickets overseas.

“Spencer doesn’t fly coach. Not even for short flights,” says the source. “He isn’t going to go overseas in coach, and definitely not on his own dime.”

[From MSNBC’s The Scoop]

Heaven forbid someone as pristine as Spencer Pratt ever fly coach. There are few qualities as loathsome as a wealthy person who’s cheap. But I guess that’s where Heidi and Spencer are at. To be fair, it must have paid off, because I doubt anyone thought they’d be able to afford a $12 million home, yet here they are.

Here are Heidi Montag and Spenser Pratt walking along Melrose Place looking at boutiques on July 16th. Images thanks to WENN.

I have given Kanye West a pretty hard time in the past. So I think it’s important to be just as effusive when he does something praiseworthy. Kanye started a foundation in his mother’s honor after she died. Along with the foundation, Kanye has joined up with MTV to produce an episode of the Choose or Lose documentary in which he visits veterans returning home, and highlights the issues and hardships they face.

In this next installment of “Choose or Lose,” MTV’s ongoing campaign to bring awareness to young veterans issues, MTV News and Kanye West have teamed up to tell the stories of returning veterans in the powerful documentary “Choose or Lose & Kanye West Present: Homecoming” set to air on Monday, July 28 at 10pm ET/PT.

In this one hour special, Kanye, along with Sway Calloway, give recently returned Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans the surprise of their lives by unexpectedly visiting their homes. Viewers will see first-hand the difficult and often painful challenges young vets face when they return home.

“There are hundreds of veterans out there who are falling through the cracks. They make the ultimate sacrifices for us by laying down their lives, but it seems like a lot of them just get forgotten about,” West said. “I know my music inspires and helps a lot of people, but you can always do more. I teamed up with MTV and took the opportunity to share the spotlight with these veterans and hear their stories. I went to their homes to listen and get their firsthand experiences. I wanted to hear their stories.”

[From Concrete Loop]

The best part about this – aside from bringing the important issue of young veterans to the attention of the public – is that the Dr. Donda West Foundation gave each veteran some kind of major, life-altering gift – like full tuition for college, rent, or paying off their debts. From the synopsis, it sounds like they’re talking about something truly substantial – not a month or two of rent or partial assistance paying for school books. I can’t imagine what a powerful and wonderful gift that must have been for all involved. It’s great to bring attention to an issue, but even greater when you can do something like improve someone’s life in a better way. Big congrats to Kanye for working on this.

Here’s Kanye with his late mother Donda West at a book signing for “Raising Kanye: Life Lessons From The Mother Of A Hip-Hop Superstar” at Waterstones bookstore in London on June 30th, 2007. Images thanks to WENN.

The thought of Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt spending time in a war zone is pretty appealing to most people. But the possibility of them somehow getting a little bit of good publicity is utterly sickening. The disgusting duo are pimping out their new friendship with (presumed) republican presidential candidate John McCain’s daughter Meghan, and are trying to use their new connections to finagle a trip to Iraq.

… Senator John McCain — or at least his daughter — has certainly struck up a friendship with a Hollywood celebrity — who’s none other than Heidi Montag. The Hills star, who has voiced her support for the Republican presidential hopeful, has been in close contact with Sen. McCain’s daughter, Meghan.

“She’s very sweet,” Heidi tells Extra. “We have a lot in common.” That includes their support of the troops. Meghan is trying to engineer a trip to Iraq for Heidi and fiancé Spencer Pratt. “Her dad definitely has some pull with the military,” Spencer says. “I think she’s going to put that together for us.”

Heidi is determined to entertain the troops overseas as her late stepbrother Eric O’Hara served in the 82nd Airborne Division. He wasn’t killed during duty, but passed in a freak accident back home in Colorado. “My brother was an airborne ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq,” she says. “It’s very important to me and important to Spencer to support the troops and go over there.”

[From OK! Magazine]

Oh please. Don’t make this sound like anything more than what it really is: more fodder for your pathetic “celebrity.” I’ve never seen any couple set up more obvious, cheesy, and trite photo ops in my life. Heidi and Spencer on a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park! Heidi and Spencer catching a fly ball at the baseball game! Heidi and Spencer running through a field of fucking daisies!

Look I appreciate supporting the troops, but that’s clearly not what this is. And it’s just crass for Heidi to use her deceased stepbrother to make it sound like something deeper than what it is. You want your pictures on the pages of OK! And you’re desperate to be taken seriously; but the harder the two of you try, the worse you look. Just give up, make your sex tape, get into some minor-league legal trouble and fade into oblivion with the rest of the Q-list celebs.

Here’s Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt having lunch on Robertson Boulevard in L.A. on Friday. Don’t you pose like that when you eat? It looks ever so natural. Images thanks to PR Photos.

James Blunt apparently abandoned his lady loving ways just long enough to show some graphic war footage during a recent concert. Blunt is best known for bland over-played music and romancing thousands of women the world over. But before he was a singer, he worked as an armed guard for NATO, serving as a peacekeeper in Kosovo. Somehow it’s hard to look at his face and imagine that. I’d have an easier time believing he used to professionally make ribbons for girls’ hair or something. But I digress. James took a lot of video of the destruction in Kosovo, and chose to show some of it during his concert in New York City last night.

British crooner James Blunt kept his ladies’-man persona intact Friday night at the Beacon Theatre - until he launched into his poignant ballad “No Bravery,” and the collective swooning turned to gasps.

As Blunt revealed that he wrote the tune while serving as an armed NATO peacekeeper in Kosovo, the captivated audience watched a massive video screen display images of bombed homes, dead bodies and graves interspersed with smiling children flashing peace signs.

“The film was my footage, taken from our vehicles while we patrolled,” the singer later told us at an after-party. “I recently had a chance to go back and play for the Serbs, and they were all in on my message. It’s great because music is the strongest form of communication, and it was nice to connect with them.”

[From the Huffington Post]

Well that’s… surprising. Given Blunt’s reputation, it never occurred to me that he might actually be cool enough to want to make an impact. So kudos to him for that. I’m guessing his audience was pretty surprised. I mean rarely do I think of James Blunt and then think politics, or current events, or war. But hey, more the reason to say something. I can’t think of any other entertainers who’ve done something as unusual as being an armed peacekeeper. Between that and dating Petra Nemcova, he’s had a pretty full life.

Here’s James Blunt at the Brit Awards on February 20th. Images thanks to PR Photos.