Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski was among the thousands who bought an iPhone last Friday–we are hooked on handhelds here at AllThingsD.com. And then he waited. And waited. Not that he wasn’t eager to begin using his new device (reviewed here by Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret). He was simply one of the many unhappy iPhonatics who ran up against an overwhelmed AT&T activation system, which left him unable to make the most of his brand-new gadget for more than 40 hours. You can read his tale of woe or watch his video, which is available below as well.

Today in Digital Daily, John also notes the bizarre (if not goofy) Pentagon project to develop a nonlethal bullet that would release laughing gas. Seriously.

And on the subject of ill-considered ideas, he takes Google’s Health Advertising Blog to task for reviewing, of all movies, Michael Moore’s “Sicko,” which is highly critical of the U.S. health-care system, and of encouraging the health-care industry to counter the negative publicity by running–what else?–ads on Google.

Posted by Associate Editor John Sullivan.

From its Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate comes word of a 2002 project to develop a nonlethal bullet with a laughing-gas payload. “The design of these bullets includes tailored explosives and propellants and a booster/projectile design with miniaturized mechanical components, where the energetic part or booster drops off on emergence from the gun, and a soft nose persists in its trajectory with high kinetic energy to impinge on the target with a strong blow or punch effect,” explains the 2002 proposal. “The nose can be automatically deflated on target impingement, releasing malodorants, irritants, laughing gas or other chemical agents. Essentially this nonlethal weapon will allow the military to ‘punch,’ slap and hit an individual repetitively from a distance and in a manner [that] provides no injuries.”

You’d think we had seen the pinnacle of Dr. Strangelove-style military schemes with “Who Me”–a material that produced a fecal odor with which its creators hoped to make enemy combatants a laughingstock.

I guess not. Next thing you know, they’ll be drawing up plans to
keep plutonium land mines warm and operative with a flock of chickens …