Every commercial aircraft is struck by lightning at least once per year. Actually, its more like planes get in the way of the lightning as the bolt continues on elsewhere after exiting the aircraft. The metal skin and structure of a conventional plane conducts the electricity relatively harmlessly around the outside of the plane instead of through the passenger compartment or fuel tanks.
With all the voltage driving a lightning bolt, it's a pretty irresistible force. If it encounters resistance, heat quickly builds up and burns through resistant or insulating materials. Advanced composite materials finding increasing applications in aircraft don't conduct electricity and might be more susceptible to heat damage from a strike. One solution currently in use is to layer or embed metal fibers in the composite material to provide the needed electrical conductivity.
According to Information Week (Sept. 6, 1993), the annual productivity loss by US Businesses due to employees playing computer games is an estimated $100 Billion - which works out to 2% of the Gross Domestic Product.
According to the March/April 1993 D & B report, the US loses an estimated 6 million jobs per year due to information stolen through industrial espionage. The annual US revenue loss due to information stolen through industrial espionage is estimated at $200 Billion.
The annual cost of unauthorized software duplication is estimated at $4 Billion.
Those who promote mass transit often quote the statistic that motor vehicles are the primary cause of smog - implying that private automobiles are the main problem. According to a recent American Automobile Association study, automobiles and light trucks are no longer the main cause of smog in the United States. 2/3rds of the smog in the 10 major cities in the study came from smokestacks, refineries, big trucks, and busses. Since mass transit is a greater cause of pollution than the "problem" it claims to solve, could it be that our independent freedom of movement is the real "enemy" the self appointed social engineers are attacking? Its awfully hard to divide and conquer if the "conquered" keep moving around and mingling.
According the the Wall Street Journal, the proposed Federal budget is roughly $1.5 trillion. The total cost of defeating the Axis powers in WWII was $4.5 trillion. Over the next 3 years, the US government will in peace time spend more than it cost to win WWII, to lose the wars on poverty, drugs, and crime.
Spreading plague as recreation:
New San Francisco study shows that new HIV infection cases are almost 4 times the number in 1987. In a recent article in The Village Voice, Michael Warner writes: "Large numbers of homosexual men are currently engaging in unsafe sex because the risk of death adds to the experience. The appeal of queer sex for many lies in its ability to violate responsiblizing frames of good right thinking people."