Personnel: George Carlin (spoken vocals).

That George Carlin has been slinging his outrageous brand of biting social commentary and edgy humor since the early 1970s is amazing enough, but that he has even more ire, outrage, and incisiveness to sling in 2006 than when he started is all the more impressive. Like much of Carlin's work from the '80s and '90s, LIFE IS WORTH LOSING is the album companion to an HBO concert special, but Carlin is, fortunately, just as much fun to listen to as he is to watch.

Topics covered on LIFE IS WORTH LOSING include such unfit-for-dinner fare as suicide, yeast infections, and the general stupidity of the American public. While the iconoclastic jester hasn't lost his penchant for schoolyard humor (he engages in a lengthy meditation on the word "cornhole"), his razor-sharp intelligence cuts even more precisely into the political and existential morass of early-21st-century life. In fact, America probably needs Carlin more than ever, and this release proves he's still around fighting the good fight.