Yesterday we heard about the beginning of the pricey 600-person layoffs at Time Inc.—memos went out at several major magazines announcing that dozens of staffers would be cut. But this is an international company, and its trouble isn't limited to America. We hear that the European offices of Time, People, and Fortune could be facing severe cuts as well: A tipster tells us:

Not to use that hacky old line about saving all their asses in WWII and leaving them free to invest in things other than standing armies for the last 60-plus years, but Europe is just laughing its delicate ass off at us now that we're in financial trouble. The little bastards. "They list greed and Greenspan among the culprits, and there are comparisons to . . . Albania. But amid the gloating, there is fear for financial systems in Britain, Spain, Italy and elsewhere. It's a rare day when finance officials, leftist intellectuals and ordinary salespeople can agree on something. But the economic meltdown that wrought its wrath from Rome to Madrid to Berlin this week brought Europeans together in a harsh chorus of condemnation of the excess and disarray on Wall Street. The finance minister of Italy's conservative and pro-U.S. government warned of nothing less than a systemic breakdown. Giulio Tremonti excoriated the 'voracious selfishness' of speculators and 'stupid sluggishness' of regulators. And he singled out Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, with startling scorn." "'Greenspan was considered a master,' Tremonti declared. 'Now we must ask ourselves whether he is not, after [Osama] bin Laden, the man who hurt America the most. . . . It is clear that what is happening is a disease. It is not the failure of a bank, but the failure of a system. Until a few days ago, very few were willing to realize the intensity and the dramatic nature of the crisis.' "The system is collapsing, exactly like the Albanian pyramids collapsed,' Tremonti said. 'The idea is gaining ground that the way out of the crisis is mainly with large public investments. . . . The return of rules is accompanied by a return of the public sector.'" Okay, okay. So our shit's a little fucked up right now. But here's one thing: We don't have to take any crap from the likes of fucking Italy. How are your Neo-Nazi soccer riots going? And, what're you guys on now? Like your 24th "Republic" since Mussolini? Give it a rest. And don't get me started on Spain, Germany and France. [LAT]

A brainwashed American might look at Mr. Clean and think to themselves, "A man used as an icon in cleaning product advertisement rather than the stereotypical housewife. That's the opposite of sexism!" Try turning off the television propaganda some time, Yankee imperialist! The European Parliament has taken up the burden of righting the wrongs of the advertising industry, by decrying grossly sexist images like the gender-dominant Mr. Clean:

Did you know that in the UK it's actually illegal for liquor companies to imply that their product will help you achieve "seduction, sexual activity or sexual success"? Crazy, right? But the byproduct is that even George Clooney-the sexiest man alive (according to women or whatever)-has to play like a good boy in his European ads for Martini vermouth. Oh, he's so couth. He just wants to twirl that fake mustache and meet you later on to get to know the real you. Don't believe the hype, ladies; he can't love you like a blogger can. Scoff at his act, after the jump:

Ryanair, the cheap European airline that you used that one time you got drunk on vacation in London and said "Dude, let's just go to fucking Dublin RIGHT NOW," is in a spat with regulators over the quality of its ads [NYT]. Well, not exactly the quality—they suck, obviously. The ad pictured got Ryanair in trouble with the UK advertising authorities because it "appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behavior." Maybe true, but it also appears to link Ryanair's advertising department with one guy who has only a pair of scissors, a book of clip art, and a Xerox machine. And when the regulators tried to crack down, the company responded: hell, all these newspapers are dens of iniquity themselves! Our ad fits right in!

This morning outside Penn Station, some young fellows were distributing fake anti-promotional literature "protesting" the new high speed Europe rail system. (Paris to Frankfurt in under four hours!) First of all: Ooh, fake negative ad campaign. Second: Are commuters from Lynbrook and Bayshore really the target market for RailEurope promotions? (Paging Long Island's Atoosa Rubenstein!) But really we're not sure they can afford the exchange rate. And finally: Why is Europe fucking with us and our asstacular and sad—yet pridefully, pants-pockets-tearingly American!—trains? Fine, so Luxembourg to Paris is 231 miles and their new train takes 2 hours and 5 minutes; Manhattan to East Hampton is 103 miles and it takes nearly 3 hours on the LIRR. But unlike France, at least we have our international reputation to keep us warm at night. Oh and we get to drink Coors on our trains, so there.

The Wall Street Journal examines the disastrous roll-out of Europe's .eu domain, in which one in five domain name applications were rejected for technical errors. It's just a mess. No one agrees on the criteria for winning a domain name. Little companies bought up Hertz.eu, EDS.eu, NBC.eu, and such, with real intentions of hosting their 15-person businesses. GoDaddy says a third of the .eu registrants don't have other web sites, so they're probably speculators. Some landgrabbers set up fake registrars to snap up thousands of domains.