On my first day at a new job i usually spend the first coupl eof hours meeting the folks i'll be working with, getting freaked out about how i'll ever do this job, and sometimes getting taken out to an awkward lunch with my new employer at which i feel uncomfortable and order something that is intentionally boring and not messy (no chili dogs and spaghetti).

On Condoleeza Rice's first day, she was greeetd by all the state department employees (that didnt quit in the last 2 months) and gave a speech in the lobby. She talked about the US heeding the "call of freedom" and answering the needs of oppressed people around the world.

On the other side of the Atlantic 80 world leaders got together to commemorate the day Auschwitz was liberated. The coincidence deserves mention.

The shitter of it, is that i agree wholehartedly with Rice's sentiment. I have always hated my country a little bit for not bomimbing the tracks at Auschwitz. I have always loved us for storming the beaches at Normandy.

But yet, when i saw the images of Auschwitz mixed with the image of Rice reporting to work, i wasn't reminded of the Big Red One crossing the Rhine and liberating camps, I was reminded of badly laid plans and Arab men with electrodes strapped to their genitals.

We live in a strange time when good intentions become a mask for radical ideology. If I hope this blog can accomplish anything, its that we stick this ugly truth right in their faces, like a dog in the shit he left in the living room.

Well, happy first day Condi, you sad and disastrous public servant. See you at lunch.