I am a strong believer in an international date format:
2005.11.04
Year.Month.Day
which is structured exactly the same as how we all tell time:
09:40:27 (9:40am and 27 seconds)
Hour:Minute:Second
It's also nice that both of those formats sort properly on a computer.
If we depicted times the way dates were depicted, we'd have two kinds of digital watches with times like this:
Europe-- 27:40:09 (27 seconds, 40 minutes, 9 hours)
N.America-- 40:27:09 (40 minutes, 27 seconds, 9 hours)
Only slightly less confusing than Swatch Beat watches.