Flashing a laser pointer at an aircraft is dangerous and punishable by jail time

This is my public service announcement to the idiots who have decided to shine green laser pointers into the cockpits of airplanes either taking off, landing or ascending to cruising altitude. Stop doing it! You could kill hundreds of people and I or some of my friends might be one of them. For those of you who don' know, when a laser of any colour is shone into your eyes, it can take the optic nerve a minute or two to recover normal vision and depth perception to say nothing of being able to see the colours of warning lights on the instrument panel. According to Government of Canada data, these incidents have occurred 46 times in 2008 alone. The good news is, none of these victim aircraft suffered any technical problems that would put anyone at risk. To illustrate, anyone using an optical mouse has probably had the red laser light shone into their eyes after putting in new batteries. You will see spots for a very long time. Repeat exposure may permanently damage the eyes which is not good for anyone in general and especially if you are pilot. So, to the morons who think this is fun, I will remind you that if you ever have to fly, you better hope that none of your friends flash the aircraft you are on.