Let's not forget Mort Sahl.  He was the true progenitor of Bruce, Pryor, et al.

Ralphie May can be pretty political. I've like the things he's said in his comedy club performances but he doesn't really seem to have that extra edge of a top comedian.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

I have become a very Quixotic participant to these discussions, and I will now post my excessively late comment.

It is, of course, ridiculous to imagine that George Carlin was finally stuck down by God at the age of 71 after a lifetime of blasphemy, when logically if God was really offended by George Carlin the divine retribution could have come much earlier and could (as you point out) have also be inflicted in a manner that would make God's displeasure evident, rather than in the form of heart attack, which is an ailment that seems to afflict all sorts of people, whether pious or impious.  

It is interesting that in the latter years of the life of Pope John Paul II, when he suffered from Parkinson's disease, he did not conclude that God was punishing him, but rather, he concluded that God had inflicted the disease on him in order to give him greater empathy toward other sick people (all of whom, presumably, had also been made sick by God for a variety of mysterious purposes).  So it seems that theologically speaking, sickness or even death can be either a punishment or a blessing.  

I could just as easily assert that the reason why God finally killed George Carlin is because God is a fan of Carlin, and He wanted more stand-up comedy in Heaven.  With theology, anything goes.  Carlin understood that.

Maybe nobody ever dies for any other reason than the will of God; maybe God causes all things, whether good or bad.  And we would all live forever if God did not choose to strike us down.  Is this a reasonable theory?  Of course not.  Even though nobody can prove it wrong (the usual theistic argument - I can't prove I'm right but you can't prove I'm wrong, nyaah nyaah!) it is an obviously improbable theory, contra-indicated by Occam's Razor.  Since we understand quite well why human biology, in accordance with the laws of nature as we know them, will cause many people to develop heart disease and eventual heart attacks, we have no need to hypothesize a supernatural cause as well.

If we did want to hypothesize a supernatural cause for a perfectly normal event, why not claim that Carlin was murdered by a means of a voodoo doll?  If so, there is a murderer out there who must be brought to justice before he kills again!  Of course, we have absolutely no evidence for this bizarre hypothesis, but who cares, we have no evidence that Carlin was killed by God either, yet that won't stop people from making that assertion.  Who needs evidence?  We have faith!