The Louisiana state legislature recently wasted $1 million on a special session where they didn't accomplish anything. Otherwise known as a Day Ending In Y here in the Bayou State, the fact that our politicians got paid to not do anything isn't all that surprising to anyone who works for a living and pays taxes here.

Still, it got us thinking about what the world would look like if everything worked the same way as politics, but that was too depressing to even imagine, so we decided to focus on the positive and present some potential role models our fearless leaders could look up to. You know, for inspiration and whatnot.

Here, then, are seven people and things more productive than Louisiana politicians:

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Dung Beetles

A group of dung beetles can go through over three pounds of elephant poop in just two hours, and a single dung beetle can bury dung that is 250 times heavier than itself whenever it feels like it, because that's just the kind of work ethic they have. To top it all off, your average dung beetle is much more forward-thinking than your average politician, often laying their eggs inside a ball of dung so that their larvae can start eating the second they hatch.


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Student Council

Long before career politicians give up on life and decide to become career politicians, they often start by serving on student council, where they somehow manage to accomplish more in four years of high school than they will over a lifetime in government. Just think about it for a second: school dances wouldn’t happen without them, and our education system would be even more broke without their fundraising efforts including, but not limited to: candy sales, car washes, and the inevitable raffle tickets they guilt all of us into buying. If you're still not convinced of how much we owe our student councils, we have one word for you: Homecoming.


 

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Cap’n Crunch

Even before he launched a breakfast cereal empire, Cap’n Crunch was captaining a ship called the Guppy, where he carved his own path and made his own rules. (Technically, he wears the bars of a naval commander, not a captain - but that didn’t stop Cap’n Crunch from lying on his resume to achieve his dreams.) Horatio Magellan Crunch was born on Crunch Island in the Sea of Milk, where he grew up amidst talking trees, magical creatures, and - most importantly - in the shadow of Mt. Crunchmore, which he would later mine to produce the cereal he'd eventually become famous for. All of this is entirely true, as far as corporate fictions written for a mascot go, which makes it slightly more convincing than your average campaign ad featuring some rich dude standing by a ratchet old pick-up truck, trying to convince us he's a man of the people or whatever.


 

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Samuel German

In 1852, a man named Samuel German invented a style of baking chocolate so delicious that the Baker’s Chocolate Company named it “German’s Chocolate” after him. Later, in 1957, Mrs. George Clay submitted a recipe using the chocolate to The Dallas Morning News called “German’s Chocolate Cake” - and the rest is history. The possessive “German’s” would eventually be dropped, which is how one American baker became the reason most people believe the lie that German Chocolate Cake is from Germany, which is kind of like how politicians try to make us think everything they screw up is someone else's fault.


 

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Mosquitoes

A mosquito’s average lifespan is only two months, but in that short time, they can ruin more family picnics and time spent outdoors than anyone can imagine. A female can lay up to 300 eggs at once, and every mosquito can drink up to three times its weight in blood each day. Oh, and mosquitoes are responsible for killing more people every year than any other creature on the planet, which is something our politicians keep trying to do. But, you know, with taxes instead of malaria.


 

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John Aitken and James Jeffray

Between 1783 and 1785, these two Scottish doctors changed the world by inventing the first chainsaw…for use in childbirth. No, that's not a typo. The chainsaw was invented to cut into bone and cartilage long before it was used to cut down trees. It was powered by hand, with a fine serrated link chain that did the cutting. The doctors developed the device to assist in symphysiotomy procedures, which involved making childbirth even more painful by removing bone and cartilage from the birth canal. Much like how we elect politicians based on promises they abandon the second a lobbyist walks into their office, the basic design of the medical chainsaw would later be adopted by the timber industry and exploited for profit before making its way into Hollywood slasher films and Halloween haunted houses across the nation.


 

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Bacteria

Bacteria were around before the dinosaurs roamed the earth, and they’ll be around long after humans are gone. They can survive in the harshest conditions imaginable, can live off of radioactive waste, and have even made their way to Earth from Mars. They're everywhere. In fact, for every one human cell in your body, there are 10 cells of bacteria living off of your hard work, which makes them a lot like politicians when you stop to think about it.

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