George Carlin (1937-2008)

Five months before he was to receive the Mark Twain Prize at Kennedy Center, George Carlin died at age 71. A TV regular in the Ed Sullivan and Johnny Carson era, he reinvented himself as the comic voice of the counterculture.

Carlin couldn't always answer life's important questions, but at least he raised them. Like this one:

Why is the man (or woman) who invests all your money called a broker?