Okay, so I finished the seventh book over the weekend, and beyond being able to brag that I was right about absolutely everything in this old post (spoiler warning), I have to ask: Do they not have sex-ed at Hogwarts? How is it at all plausible that there are a bunch of 17-year-old boys who still shudder and squirm at the very thought of kissing girls? What's going on here? Don't the Muggle-borns watch TV when they're home for the summer?

Anyway, I enjoyed Megan McArdle's Guardian piece on the inconsistencies of the Harry Potter universe, although some of her criticisms seemed not quite right (the "poverty" of the Weasley family seems to have more to do with social class than material wealth, and it seems reasonable that they can't just magically create complicated textbooks out of thin air). One thing that seems odd, though, is how there can be only one wizard school in all of Britain. Surely there are more wizards than that, right? Especially since they all seem to have lots of babies--and at ridiculously early ages, to boot. Oh well.