Hello, Kosovo

It's always nice to welcome a new independent, democratic, and secular state onto the world stage. Sometimes it feels pretty lonely out here. And we couldn't have asked for a more deserving new companion than Kosovo, whose parliament declared its independence from Serbia over the weekend. For those who only remember the '90s as a hazy stream of grungy music and even grungier people, Kosovo's majority population of secular Muslim ethnic Albanians recently endured an organized campaign of genocide under the reign of Serbian president Slobodon Milosevic, who unfortunately died before he could be properly punished for war crimes. Tired of the sideways glances they've received from the Serbian government and their genocide-tolerating allies in Russia and China, the ethnic Albanians finally decided to take the law into their own hands and drafted a declaration of independence on some nice parchment paper. Let's hope the new nation of Kosovo makes good on its promise to remain secular and respectful of the rights of its Christian Serbian minority--the same kind of respect denied them under Serbia's rule. More details here.