World Running Out of Electrons, New Report Warns

The world is rapidly running out of electrons, a new report from environmental action group Earth First warns. They have advocated that electrons be placed on the endangered sub-atomic particles list.

Electrons are being used in shocking numbers by all consumers of electricity. The usual scapegoats of the United States and Western Europe are once again at the top of the list, consuming electrons at a rate of 900 gigawatts per day. A single digital computer uses electrons at a rate of approximately 6 billion billion per second, almost equal to the rate at which the federal deficit is growing. The report predicts a serious worldwide electron shortage by tomorrow.

Confronted with the report, White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove just shrugged. "I don't know. We'll worry about it next week," he told reporters. News of the report sent electronics stocks tumbling to their lowest level in five hours. Utility company stock, however, soared, as the price of electrons doubled to over three dollars a gallon.

The Earth First report recommends the immediate closure of all electron drilling, refining, and distributing operations, and a reversion back to the cave-man life style. Critics called their recommendations "somewhat drastic".

Al Gore's "Alliance for Climate Protection" has called for the development of alternative energy carriers. Protons have been considered, but they are some 2000 times more massive than electrons and tend to clog the wires. Gore and the other democratic candidates have ignored neutrons, as they rarely vote anyway. The neutrons we surveyed had no opinion on the matter. The Alliance has also proposed the construction of a new sub-atomic particle to replace the dwindling electron supply. However, new sub-atomic particles are expensive, as they are often patented and cannot presently be assembled in Taiwan or Malaysia. American supercollider operators are working on better ways to export the technology, to prevent too much work being done in the United States.

As the number of negative charges decreases, the entire earth becomes more electropositive, contributing to Global Positivism. While the Democrats favor a more negative planet, the Bush administration has touted the benefits of Positivism. For example, hostile aliens who traveled to earth from a more electronegative world would be "posicuted" (a generally fatal process similar to electrocution and watching Barney) as soon as they stepped out of their flying saucers. However, friendly aliens would suffer the same fate. It is not yet known whether most aliens are friendly or hostile, but science fiction authors seem to favor the latter view.

The electron is not the first sub-atomic particle to be driven to annihilation or near-extinction by human activities. The tachyon, for example, was killed off by Einstein and his philosophy of special moral relativity, which permitted the extermination of non- conforming particles. The previously often hypothesized magnetic monopole was spotted once in the wild but has never been seen again by confirming researchers. The strange quark has a half-life of only 1 nanosecond and currently cannot reproduce outside of magnetic captivity. There is, at any given time, an average of less than one left in the whole world.