It’s a shame when bad things happen to good people, though I understand Harold S. Kushner has built a cottage industry around helping the woeful make the most of such misfortune. (“Making lemons out of lemonade,” as my friend Mike Signorile once put it.)

And it’s a good thing, at least in my opinion, when bad things happen to bad people.

But what’s even better is when good things happen to good people, and such is the case today.

Humorist, blogger, oboist, attorney, and insomniac Mad Kane, whose driver’s license more likely reads Madeleine Begun Kane, has been nominated for two -- not one, but two -- of About.com’s 2002 Political Dot-Comedy Awards:

Best Parodies (Ongoing Achievement) for her site, Mad Kane’s Political Humor; and

Best Bush Humor for yet another of her sites, Dubya’s Dayly Diary.

As the incomparable Ms. Mad Kane herself notes (Ever notice that almost no one could ever say Peggy Lee’s [Dead!] name without prefacing the appellation with the words, “the incomparable Miss,” as in, “The incomparable Miss Peggy Lee”?), the competition is fierce, and while Kane humbly professes not to expect to win, we all know it’s much more fun to show up at Morton’s with a statue than without one.

Visit her sites first if you feel you need to, but join the fun and do what the rest of the kool kids are doing: Voting for Mad Kane! (<===Click there to vote.)

And you know what? A win, even a decent showing, might help make up for all the times Mad’s mother, with a heavy sigh, introduced guests to her miniature poodle as “my only grandchild.”