Sharks with laser beams

I always wanted to write a post titled that.  For the geeks out there they understand that phrase came from a movie about a meglomaniac bent on world domination....  Dr. Evil.  But the laser beam due to it's linear quality can only be used defensively.  Let me explain.  Since the a beam of light is not affected by gravity that means I can only shoot line of sight at a target.  Deploying a large laser system like this one http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/unexpectedly-navys-superlaser-blasts-away-a-record/ will only allow us to shoot stuff out of the sky.  I can't even really shoot a ship 100 miles away because the curve of the Earth gets in the way.  This really reduces this application to a defensive one.  To be truly offensive (i.e. hit a target on the far side of the globe) you need a projectile on a ballistic trajectory.  However, if you can stuff all that hardware into a satellite then you could cover a much larger area and the laser becomes offensive in nature. So really Dr. Evil was just concerned with his own protection, after all his companies make substantially more than one miLLion dollars per day. ;-)