KDE and the Environment. Setting it correctly?

How do I determine what the environment my KDE session is running in? IOW, the KDE process itself is started by my logging into X. The kicks off the startkde script that mangles my environment before it lets me do anything. If I Alt+F2 and launch an app that is supposed to be aliesed, it doesn't work. I set the alias in both my .bashrc and .profile. If I launch the same app from an xterm, it works. I really don't want to be setting things in 5 different places just to get them to work. Where do I need to set this alias so it is known to application that are started directly by the KDE? STH