Ben Franklin simply diverted lightning by a few feet.
Lightning that took five miles to obtain earth ground through
a church steeple instead took a path only a few feet off to
one side.  Down a metal wire to earth instead of using the
church.

  That is the concept of surge protection.  Plug-in protectors
would have you believe they are stopping or absorbing a
surge.  They deceive.  Surge protectors are effective when the
surge is provided a shorter, more (electrically) direct path
to earth.  Therein lies the advantage and secret of 'whole
house' protectors.  They connect lightning to earth before
lightning can find an earth ground path inside the building.

  Surge protection works only when it shunts (diverts) a surge
to earth ground.  Shunting to earth is most easily
accomplished right where utility wire attempts to enter
building.

  Some minimally sized 'whole house' protectors for
residential AC are sold in Home Depot as Intermatic EG240RC or
IG1240RC, or Siemens QSA2020.  A few other AC electric 'whole
house' protectors:
  http://members.home.net/kapland/surge.htm
  http://www.dale-electric.com/ditek.htm
  http://www.deltala.com/prod01.htm
  http://www.deltala.com/prod02.htm
  http://www.ditekcorp.com/dispInfo.cfm?ID=280
  http://www.ditekcorp.com/dispinfo.cfm?id=579
  http://www.ditekcorp.com/dispfamily.cfm?id=3
  http://www.ch.cutler-hammer.com/surge/products/chsp.html
http://www.squared.com/us/squared/corporate_info.nsf/unid/ECA90110AB7098
  or  http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z1B7539A1
  http://www.leaintl.com/pdf/HSPCCutsheet.pdf
  http://www.leaintl.com/pdf/PBSCutsheet.pdf
  http://www.leaintl.com/pdf/MsaCutsheet.pdf  
http://members.tripod.com/~StorminProtection/index-31.html
  http://www.nooutage.com/LightningSurgeProt.htm   (LA-302)
  http://www.keison.co.uk/furse/furse06.htm
  http://www.mimcv.com/residential.html
and one from Leviton but their web site does not make URLs
easy.