GemMan

Ghost Ship' goes Missing in Atlantic-en route to Dominican Republic 'Ghost Ship' goes Missing in the Atlantic Four Months after it Snapped Loose from Dock where it was Going to be Scrapped The MV Lyubov Orlova vanished en route to Dominican Republic in JanuarySet sail from Canada to be scrapped when towing cable snappedBoat was cast adrift and was being tracked by US intelligence officialsBut not seen since March and there are fears it has sunk and is leaking toxins into oceanBy Daily Mail, 25 May 2013 A rat-infested and toxic Russian cruise ship cast adrift in the Atlantic Ocean has apparently vanished. The MV Lyubov Orlova - named after a Soviet actress - broke free in January when it was being tugged to be scrapped. It was being tracked by US intelligence officials but has not been seen since March and there are fears it has sunk. Sunk without trace: The MV Lyubov Orlova has been missing since January and is now presumed to be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean The luxury liner was being towed to the Dominican Republic from Newfoundland, Canada, when it slipped away as the crew on board the towing ship battled howling winds and 10ft waves to try in vain to reconnect the towing line. The so-called 'ghost ship' was located briefly in February as it floated aimlessly about 500 miles off the coast of Ireland. Then, in March, the Canadian Coast Guard reported that one of the ship's emergency radio beacons, which activate after hitting the water or another object, flashed a location almost 800 miles off Newfoundland, according to the Vancouver Sun. With no further sightings, some are speculating the ship has sunk. There are fears the vessel could be leaking toxic fluids into the water, according to French environmental organization Robin du Bois. 'In case of a collision or sinking or any accident, the Lyubov Orlova will immediately release fuel,other toxic liquids, asbestos, mercury and other non-degradable floating waste,' the group declared in a statement, according to LiveScience. There has been confusion about which country is responsible for the 37-year-old luxury liner. Off-course: The mysterious ship has been sighted 1,300 nautical miles from Ireland's west coast Canada's transport authority has said the abandoned ship is no longer its concern as the vessel has left the country's waters, with officials insisting the owner of the Orlova is responsible for its movements. Court records obtained by the Globe and Mail newspaper show the vessel is owned by Hussein Humayuni, the owner of Neptune International Shipping Inc. Now home only to rats, the 1976-built ship once carried passengers on Antarctic cruises. The ship was seized by authorities in Newfoundland in 2010 amid spiraling debts owed to charter firm Cruise North Expeditions after faults on board meant a scheduled cruise had to be cancelled. She is understood to have been sold to Neptune International Shipping in February last year to be broken up. A supply vessel called the Atlantic Hawk was able to reconnect to the Orlova a short time later, only to have the cable fail again. The ghostly liner was not seen again until about a month later, when a was spotted 1,300 nautical miles from Ireland's west coast.

The Cutest Puppies in the World (18 photos)

Perfectly Timed Photos Make Us Appreciate Common Animals 2nd Place Winner: Licking Fox Winners of The Mammal Society's Photographer of the Year competition were just announced and they include photographers who took some incredibly amazing shots of ordinary animals captured at perfectly timed moments. There were 370 total submissions and out of those a photo of a brown rat, shot by Roy Rimmer, took home the top prize. Of course, this was no ordinary rat photo. Rimmer, of Wigan, Greater Manchester, caught the stunned rat frozen in mid-air as it was jumping from one rusty paint can to another. Said one of the judges, wildlife photographer Kate MacRae, “This image quite literally ‘leapt’ out at me when I first saw it. Often misunderstood and unfairly depicted, I loved the unique energy in this capture.” The second place winner was Julie Milne from South East England who won the judges hearts (and ours) with a photo of a fox licking a window. Milne has a fox den in her garden and she was able to capture one of the female cubs in a sweet and humorous way. The goal of the competition was to help us appreciate the common species that live all around us. By showcasing them in an unusual or extraordinary way, it hoped to encourage us to look at mammals with a renewed sense of respect and admiration. (Mission accomplished!) Above photo by Julie Milne 1st Place Winner: Jumping Rat Photo by Roy Rimmer 3rd Place Winner: Wood Mouse with Blackberry Photo by Gary Cox Play-fighting Stoats Photo by Joel Walley Water Vole Photo by Julie Milne Gray Seals Laughing Photo by Jason Parnell-Brooks Fox with Lunch Photo by David Gibbon Leaping Squirrel Photo by Austin Thomas Surfing Seal Photo by Tim Hunt Weasel Chasing Sparrows Photo by Harry Martin Urban Fox Photo by Ian Wade Oh No, You Got Me! Photo by Kate Williamson

Meet the Cutest Kitten in the World's Partner in Crime When we first came across Daisy, we proudly declared her "The Cutest Little Kitten in the World." There's no denying her cuteness, the way she plays the piano, hides in bowls and sweetly gazes at bubbles make her undeniably adorable. Ben Torode, her proud owner, gave us a wonderful glimpse into her world telling us in this interview, "Daisy doesn't like to be held or even petted that much, but she HATES to be alone. Her happiest time (apart from eating) is joining us on the bed. She just likes to be near us and that's when she'll purr like crazy." You may not know it but Daisy has a partner in crime! Yes, Torode got Daisy in May 2012 and then Hannah just three months later. "Daisy was having trouble understanding how hard to bite or scratch us (way too hard) and we wanted to get her a sister so she could learn to play properly, because when they get bitten they learn how much is too much," Torode tell us. Daisy Hannah Did they get along? "The first week all they did was fight, often cat sumo style but now it's just the occasional play fight. I think this was the first time they seemed to be okay just sitting next to one another. As the days have gotten cooler they seem to have gravitated towards one another, and when they get scared of something like yesterday's earthquake they huddle together. Just two months apart in age, Daisy and Hannah seem to fight and play like true sisters. Though you may not guess it from the pictures, they're personalities are actually very different. "Daisy is definitely more chilled and cautious," says Torode. "When we play with her, her favorite thing is to hide in a box and attack from concealment and once she gets hold of a toy she doesn't let go and retreats to the nearest lair she can find to bite it more. "Hannah, on the other hand, is more of a traditional cat. Extremely athletic, an avid climber, and she just loves getting into the tiniest of places. Her idea of playing is us throwing things way above her and her jumping to pluck them out of the air (see super awesome When asked what he hopes everyone gets out of these photos, Torode told us this, "For the people who watch my Flickr and Blipfoto streams, it seems the most interesting thing has been seeing these two cats slowly become accustomed to one another despite their very different traits. I'm glad we got two very different cats and I'm just happy to share the joy of owning them in a visual way."

Tilt - Romain Laurent (7 photos) Have you ever felt like the world seemed slightly tilted? French photographer, Romain Laurent sure has. Makes me wonder how he was able to pull off these shots...

Believable Relationship Scenes Constructed in Photoshop While at first glance these photos just look like two people captured in public and private moments, look a little closer and you'll notice that the subjects are identical looking. Twins, perhaps? Not quite. Photographer Kelli Connell takes two or more photos and manipulates them together to create believable relationship scenes. One, single model acts out two different parts, reconstructing private relationships that the photographer has experienced, witnessed or seen on television. That means that these events never really occurred. Instead, one is asked to see themselves in both roles. “By digitally creating a photograph that is a composite of multiple negatives of the same model in one setting,” Connell writes in an artist’s statement, “the self is exposed as not a solidified being in reality, but as a representation of social and interior investigations that happen within the mind.” Fascinating. Her series, titled Double Life, is on view at Photo-eye Gallery through June 30, 2012.

New Non-Photoshopped Body Art by Chooo-san Can you believe that these body modifications are created without using any digital editing software? They are the painted works of a Japanese artist known simply as Chooo-san. We first came across the unusually realistic body art of the 19-year-old Musashino Art University student this past summer and in a matter of months she has completed six new surreal body art pieces that continue to blow our minds. Equipped with some acrylic paints and raw talent, Chooo-san has once again proven she is a master manipulator. There's even a hint of humor in the new works. On a lean torso of a man, she depicts a series of neatly fastened buttons and the same set of buttons appear to be popped open, unable to close shut, on the belly of a heavier set fellow. And, yet again, the artist incorporates a modest prop (in this case a cord) to heighten the believability of the skin illustrations.

6 Most Stunning Actress Transformations Disclosure: This post is part of an upcoming sponsorship with the movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. While we’re all used to seeing Hollywood actresses dolled up for red carpet events like the Oscars or the Golden Globes, we’re more amazed when they leave all that glitz and glamour behind to transform themselves into something completely different. Today, we’ve compiled a list of modern-day actresses who have done just that. While in some cases they’ve endured hours in the make-up chair, other times they’ve taken drastic, highly disciplined steps to morph right in front of our very eyes. Here, then, is our list of the six most stunning actress transformations from recent and upcoming movies. Rooney Mora as Lisbeth (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) How does a seemingly sweet girl who was last seen as Mark Zuckerberg's pretty, quick-witted girlfriend in The Social Network, show that she can play a androgynous, bisexual computer hacker? Better yet, how do you beat out A-list actresses like Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson for the role in David Fincher's latest movie? You not only show the director that you can handle a highly charged rape scene, you dramatically alter your appearance. To prepare for the role of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, actress Rooney Mara had her lip, brow, nose, and nipple pierced, her eyebrows bleached and her hair chopped. The movie gets released on December 21.) Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe (My Week with Marilyn) The recently released film My Week with Marilyn is already getting 31-year-old actress Michelle Williams rave reviews for her amazingly realistic portrayal of the blond bombshell. Williams told Vogue that to prepare for the role, she started putting on weight, but it changed the way her face looked. Instead, she decided to stay slim and wear hip padding. She explained: “So at some point it became a question of, Do I want my face to look like Marilyn Monroe’s or my hips?” To get all of the subtle nuances of Marilyn down, she would research the legendary actress to no end. “I’d go to bed every night with a stack of books next to me,” she said. “And I’d fall asleep to movies of her. It was like when you were a kid and you’d put a book under your pillow hoping you’d get it by osmosis.” Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl (A Mighty Heart) Born to a Dutch father and a Cuban mother of Afro-Chinese-Cuban descent, Mariane Pearl is a mixed-race journalist who is the widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002. To everyone's surprise, Angelina Jolie was cast into this role. Although it drew criticism within the African American community, Jolie's performance was widely praised by top critics as her finest artistic achievement to date. Interestingly, it was Pearl who personally chose Jolie to play the lead. In response to casting complaints, Pearl said "I have heard some criticism about her casting, but it is not about the color of your skin. It is about who you are. I asked her to play the role—even though she is way more beautiful than I am—because I felt a real kinship to her. She put her whole heart into it, and I think she understood why we should do this movie. We had something to say that we knew we should say together." Rebecca Romijn as Mystique (X-Men, X2) Talk about patience. For her most recognizable role to date, model turned actress Rebecca Romijn Stamos had to endure eight to nine hours in the make-up chair for the original X-Men movie. Her transformation involved four women putting nearly 100 individual prosthetic pieces, made of silicon, over her otherwise naked body. The grueling make-up process did ease up for X2, with the time cut nearly in half. "We're not using the same kind of paint. We're not using the same kind of glue," she told Comics Continuum. "They've completely changed the process and they've gotten down to under four hours now, which is huge for me.” Helena Bonham Carter as Red Queen (Alice in Wonderland) To play The Red Queen, Helena Bonham Carter had to endure two and a half hours in the makeup department on the set of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Her head, however, was blown up to twice the size of what is normal in post-production. The enormous head was masterminded by the visual effects team from Sony Pictures Imageworks. A green screen stage and a special, high resolution camera were used to create the wickedly cool effect. “The queen’s head was something we had to be careful to account for all the time,” visual-effects supervisor Ken Ralston said. “We had to remind people to back away from Helena in their scenes to give her head enough room.” Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers (Black Swan) To transform herself into a believable ballerina, actress Natalie Portman trained for months with former professional ballerina Mary Helen Bowers for up to eight hours a day with only one day off a week. She also lost 20 pounds off her already petite frame. Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky asked her to shed the weight so she could look ballerina-thin. "Darren said to me before the film, 'How much weight do you think you can lose without getting sick?'” Luckily, her amazing transformation was all worth it as Natalie Portman won the Academy Award, the Golden Globe Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, and the BAFTA Award for her riveting performance of Nina Sayers in Black Swan.

Observing Generation Gaps How similar are parent and child? German photographer Frauke Theilking's photo project called "Generation" observes the similarities and differences between generations. Each photo pairs a parent and child, either a mother/daughter or father/son combo, side by side. Devoid of an elaborate background, Theilking's photos focus the viewer's attention on the subjects, who themselves aren't wearing any distracting clothing. Looking at the two figures, there are apparent (no pun intended) likenesses and gaps. For a lot of the images, it feels like looking at a split-screen of the same person at different stages in their life.

International Photography Award Winners If you love photography contests like we do, then you'll want to check out The International Photography Awards. The annual competition was created to salute the achievements of the world's finest photographers, to discover new and emerging talent, and to promote the appreciation of photography. Recently, the category winners were announced. Out of the thousands of entries IPA received this year, only the main category winners will move on as finalists to compete for IPA's top award of International Photographer of the Year. The winner will be announced at the annual Lucie Awards which is held at the Lincoln Center, New York . That person will earn the coveted Lucie Statue and a cash prize of $10,000. To view all the winners, you can go to this page on the IPA website or you can check out 25 of our very favorites, below. (We included 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners. These are all professionally taken photos.) It's a diverse compilation of some excellent and inspiring work! Advertising: Fashion, 1st Place Winner Peter Lipmann Advertising: Music, 2nd Place Winner Poras Chaudhary Advertising: Other Ad, 1st Place Winner Adam Taylor Advertising: Product, 3rd Place Winner Adam Balcerek Architecture: Other, 2nd Place Winner Kacper Kowalski Book: Nature, 1st Place Winner Thorsten Milse Book: Nature, 2nd Place Winner Alex Bernasconi Editorial: Photo Essay and Feature Story, 2nd Place Winner Zhe Chen Editorial: War/Conflict, 3rd Place Winner Jorge Dirkx Fine Art: Collage, 2nd Place Winner Dean West Fine Art: Other, 3rd Place Winner Alex Bernasconi Nature: First Category Winner Marsel van Oosten Nature: Flowers, !st Place Winner Tom D. Jones Nature, Landscapes, 1st Place Winner Mitch Dobrowner Nature, Landscapes, 2nd Place Winner Peter Lik Nature, Seasons, 2nd Place Winner John Scanlan Nature, Sunset, 1st Place Winner Rafael Rojas Nature, Sunset, 3rd Place Winner Bali & Albanese Nature, Trees, 2nd Place Winner Alex Bernasoni Nature, Underwater, 1st Place Winner Bartosz Strozynksi Nature, Underwater, 2nd Place Winner Chuck Bradley Special, Moving Images, 1st Place Winner Tyler Stableford Special, Night Photography, 1st Place Winner David Bowman Special, Pets, 1st Place Winner Lennette Newell

Funniest photo I've seen all week

Massive Mural Unzips Wall to Reveal Rabbits A massive new mural recently went up in Buenos Aires called The Magician. A large piece of wall next to a train station became the perfect spot for Martin Ron and Martin Worich's awesome work. It features a rather large man maneuvering a "hand" machine to unzip the wall. What's underneath but more rabbits than one magician would ever know what to do with! Love the illusion that the bunnies are hiding right inside the wall. The sheer scale of this mural is amazing, as well. It's 65 meters long and 4 meters high (or 213 feet by 13 feet)! It was made as part of a program to beautify the urban area.

Watcha watching?

Dancers Among Us - Jordan Matter Photography

Smiling puppy

Epic fails. The best of the best .

10 Most Controversial Fat Shaming Ads and Signs We understand the need to get attention in this media-saturated, 24/7 world. However, we're guessing that Ashley Madison didn't need to go this far. In 2011, Ashley Madison, a "married dating service for discreet encounters" (yes, such a thing exists), released an ad that mocks a plus-size model for her look. The dating site, which seeks to connect married or "attached" individuals for affairs, released an ad stating, "Did your wife SCARE you last night?" with a photo of an overweight woman lounging sexily in lingerie. The logic, we presume, is that with a wife that frighteningly fat, the only solution is to seek sex elsewhere, specifically with married folks on Ashley Madison. What irks us even more is that after the ad came out, the overweight model in question spoke out against the ads and requested that Ashley Madison not present her photo that way. Model Jacqueline, who runs a BBW ("Big Beautiful Woman") website called JuicyJackie.com, wrote a first-person essay for Jezebel.com, defending her body and condemning Ashley Madison's treatment of it. Not only is it personally offensive, Jacqueline wrote, but it sends the wrong message to viewers, particularly those who are overweight themselves. What was Ashley Madison's response to Jacqueline's reasonable request? "The best thing that could've happened to this woman is that we used her in our ad. [...] if she can get great publicity from this, all the power to her," the site's CEO said. It's big and offensive. It's a bikini-clad, overweight beachgoer painted on a billboard sign in Jacksonville, Florida with the tagline “Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber: Go Vegetarian. PETA.” The animal rights group says that they're only reminding people who are desperate to lose weight that becoming vegetarian will help them shed unwanted pounds. “Trying to hide your thunder thighs and balloon belly is no day at the beach,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. Trying to hide the truth behind a veil of insensitivity is no better, PETA. PETA wasn't trying to protect endangered marine mammals by saying “Save the Whales. Lose the Blubber” (whales need blubber to thrive after all). Their slogan was a hurtful jar at overweight people. “They're specifically targeting fat, white women,” said Joanna Potter of West Palm Beach, who's seeking legal advice on suing PETA over the advertisement. “I'm a fat, white woman. It's horribly offensive.” Perhaps what's even more offensive is the inaccuracy of the campaign. Weight loss is about making healthy eating choices, not just switching to a vegetarian diet, and PETA knows this. A number of high-profile bloggers have united in opposition to the Strong4Life Campaign, which features photos of obese children in their print and media ads with slogans like ““being fat takes the fun out of being a kid.” The campaign has purchased billboard ads all over the State of Georgia and is also running a number of television commercials in an effort to educate Georgian parents about childhood obesity. While most are in agreement with the goals of the campaign, many find the methods of the campaign, which uses photos of overweight children paired with negative slogans, to be quite offensive. Leah Segedie of Mamavation has organized a protest of the campaign, with several bloggers writing posts daily and taking part in a twitter event in the evening. The last thing we want while walking down the street is to be shamed for our breakfast choices. That's why writer Chloe Angyal was disappointed to see a sign from Oatmeals NY doing just that. However, after Angyal tweeted the company, telling them that the sign was "fatshamey and gross" and asking if they wanted to be associated with disordered eating, Oatmeals NY responded with an apology. Because looks are all that matter. As if overcrowded public transportation was not irritating enough, the health club chain Fitness First has converted a bus stop bench into a scale that will display the weight of people sitting on it. This guerilla marketing campaign created by N=5 was seen in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. This ad was spotted in San Francisco in 2008, put up by some public health initiative. The first dotted line says, “STARTED GOING FOR WALKS DURING LUNCH HOUR.” The second line says, “STOPS ORDERING TAKE-OUT AND STARTS COOKING HEALTHY MEALS.” The third line says, “JUST BOUGHT BIKINI THAT CHALLENGES SOME OBSCENITY LAWS.” The first two lines, of course, are there to show that if the fat woman makes positive health changes and stops “ordering takeout” (you know, as we all do), then she will lose lots of weight. It's the third line where things get more offensive–once she no longer has any “unsightly” lumps (please notice that the shape of the line changes, not just the size) she's “allowed” to buy a skimpy bikini. Isn't that the goal, after all? Another one of PETA's misleading ads. According to their ad, being thin, fit, and sexy is the only way to love your body, and the only way to be thin, fit, and sexy is to go vegan. Essentially, what they're saying is that everyone else should be ashamed of their bodies. In 2010, this campaign was released by billboard advertising company Interbest Outdoor to recruit potential advertisers. "Your Ad Here" is out and "Give Us Money to Take Down These Disgusting Pictures of Fat People! Hurry! OMG Look at How Hideously FAT They Are! Buy an ad already!" is in. So what we have here is an advertising ploy that tells people they should hurry up and buy that ad space before the fat guy takes all his clothes off. Not only that, but apparently it won some sort of award, and yes, the space was bought before locals got The Full Monty. Blu Cigs are a popular electronic vapor cigarette in America and it's evident with Blu's new advertising wave in popular magazines. The Blu Cigs ad below was in Rolling Stone magazine. The slogan said, "No regrets." To drive that message home, they've pictured a slender man enjoying a "cigarette" in bed next to a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) in a vinyl corset with an eerily believable just-been-sexed-up look on her face.

If you have a boat and don't want to cross the seas from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean you can hire a special service to do it for you.

21 Pictures That Are Probably Photoshopped I’m not an imaging specialist, but my hunch says that some photo manipulation has occurred in these pictures… via

11 Foods and Drinks Banned In the United States There's been a story floating around this about two teenagers here in southern California who recently died. The headlines are screaming how Four Loko cans were found by the teenagers. Of course, the handful of people who actually read the article will notice the casual mention that there were other drugs and alcohol with them too. Oh, and there's no indication the Four Loko they were drinking was the old caffeine-and-alcohol version, as opposed to the new, caffeine-free version. This list isn't an indictment of the Liberal Media, of course. I went to journalism school. I'm a tertiary part of the Liberal Media. Four Loko is the sensational aspect of the story, might as well run with it now and use corrections later. No, all the Four Loko hype made me start researching other foods and drinks that we're not allowed to eat or drink here anymore. Here are 11 foods and drinks that have been banned in the U.S.A. (This list is just like the title of that 2 Live Crew album, just with far less misogyny and far more references to haggis.) Absinthe. Absinthe has been banned in the U.S. forever. A few years back they sorta lifted the ban... but the absinthe that's legal in the U.S. now can only contain a small amount of wormwood. And absinthe without the wormwood isn't really absinthe; it doesn't make you hallucinate -- all you're doing is drinking something that's green and contains a little alcohol. Might as well drink Pucker. Or Hi-C Ecto Cooler and rum. Pig's Blood Cake. Pig's Blood Cake is a Taiwanese delicacy; it's a mix of pig's blood and rice on a stick. Even though those ingredients are probably healthier than whatever goes into a hot dog on a stick, pig's blood cake still gets the ban in the U.S. for being unsanitary. Sassafras oil. This used to flavor root beer (among other things) but was eventually banned because it was found to cause cancer in lab rats. (And cancer really slows down their plans to do the same thing they do every night: Try to take over the world.) I never really think of "sassafras" as an oil -- to me, it's primarily an expression used by old Southern women who are trying to avoid cussin' -- but what do I know? Haggis. Haggis has been banned in the U.S. for more than four decades because one of its key ingredients is sheep's lungs, and our government doesn't want us eating those. It also contains a sheep's heart and liver, and is cooked in a sheep's stomach, but those are all, apparently, cool for us to eat. So your Scottish relatives here could cook you up some haggis without the sheep's lungs, but there's really no point in eating it without one of its key ingredients... but that's kind of like drinking non-alcoholic beer, or watching the final seasons of "Scrubs", "That '70s Show", "90210" or "American Idol". Fugu. Not to be confused with FUBU. Fugu, the mostly-poisonous Japanese puffer fish, is neither for us, nor (bought) by us. Kinder Eggs. Kinder Eggs are a German candy egg. They have a milk chocolate shell, a white chocolate layer below the shell... and then a hollow center where there's a little toy. Kind of like fortune cookies, if they were more delicious, less preachy and way more of a choking hazard. It's that whole "choking hazard" part that keeps them out of the U.S. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says they're not safe for kids and, therefore, not allowed here. Pommac. Pommac was a champagne-flavored soft drink, manufactured by Dr. Pepper in the '60s. It didn't sell well... I've never had it, but I'm guessing the fact that it was a champagne-flavored soft drink had something to do with that. (The fact the Dr. Pepper has succeeded while tasting like carbonated prune juice was already enough of a miracle, they couldn't go to the well a second time.) The U.S. ended up banning the chemical that was used as its sweetner, sodium cyclamate, and that was the end of Pommac forever. Authentic Italian meats. We can eat salami, prosciutto and headcheese (which, of course, isn't cheese) here in the U.S. But it has to be slaughtered and produced here. Your uncle in the old country (any old country will do) can't export any to you. So focus your importing/exporting business elsewhere (like on long matches). Horse and human meat. Dog and cat meat are frowned upon, but there's no nationwide ban on them. Can't say the same for horse or human meat. A few years ago, it became illegal to slaughter horses for food in the U.S. (Before that, there were actually factories here that would slaughter horses for their meat. But since we don't really eat it, it was usually exported. Makes the glue factory look tame in comparison. Or, I suppose, equal.) As for human meat, for some reason, cannibalism is illegal across the board in this country. Typical big government. It's my body, it should be my choice to let someone gnaw on it or not. Vegemite. This one has treaded into urban legend realms. Vegemite contains folate, which is a food additive that the FDA isn't too sweet on. So while there's no official Vegemite ban, it's murky enough that people are reluctant to import it. So... uh... it may be tricky for you to find a horrid Australian flavored black paste to spread on your baked goods. How ever will you go on? Four Loko (the original). The FDA decided to ban Four Loko because the mix of alcohol and caffeine is so dangerous. Man, I hope they don't find out about Red Bull vodkas, whiskey-Cokes, rum and cokes, Jagerbombs, Irish coffees, SuperDews, 5 Hour Everclear, and the 85 million other ways people have been mixing alcohol and caffeine forever.