There was only one game this week where one top-25 team faced another. Among the other 23 teams, only two of them lost. The others won by an average of 35 points. I don't how anyone can dispute King's claim that that college football shedule is packed with upsets.

Also, King wasn't wrong about anything. The fact that App. St. won doesn't change the fact that no one (including those at Michigan who scheduled the game) really thought they had much of a chance, which was what King claimed. It was an upset. That means the game was won by the team that's generally considered inferior. These (very) rare upsets aren't much of an excuse for all the blowouts that occurred this past weekend.

Okay, I'll buy that argument. Thanks for the info.

You can't argue from the general to the specific like that. Yes, a Wal-mart-like near-monopoly drives the smaller competetition out of the market with its low prices, but just because that's generally true of a monopoly doesn't mean it's true in every case. In this case it's plainly not true, because Apple has had no small competetitors to drive out of business.

You say "It's very hard for any company to start up and compete with Apple's low prices for music and video," but how do you know? Given the lack of competition we don't know whether these prices are actually low or not, and it may well be that $1.99 for a TV show (or $9.99 for an album) is not a low price at all. Is there any evidence that potential competitors are being kept out of the market because these selling prices are unprofitable? Why should we believe that Apple is using its iTunes sales as a loss leader, when there's virtually no other seller to drive away and they could so easily be making a good profit?

Sure, companies should be free to experiment with different pricing models, but so should retailers be free to refuse to sell goods at abnormally high prices demanded by the suppliers--which in this case is about 250% of the price of other networks' shows. I mean, come on.

So then, since we have spell-checkers, it doesn't matter whether kids know how to spell? And since we have dictionaries, it doesn't matter whether we remember what any words mean without having to look them up?

No, we don't use unlabeled maps in the real world, but asking kids to identify countries that way is a pretty good indicator of whether they've actually used a real map to locate countries before. And while it may not be necessary to know that Indonesia is an archipelago in Southeast Asia--or that Iraq borders Iran, for instance--it's a sign of a well educated person. Would you want to have a conversation with somebody who didn't know anything without having to look it up?

Knowing how to find things is an invaluable skill, but if you really consider it a substitute for knowing things, then you're ... well, not very smart.

... makes some very good points in that last post. Seriously. Glenn, I think you're one of the very best contemporary writers on American politics, and I know you've got a lot of fans on this site who'll defend you against all critics, but I really think you need to take some serious criticism here. Please read Ché's points E, F and G very carefully. Seriously.

There have been "why bother" posts all over this thread.

Actually there have been relatively few, and my point was that they're quite different from actually giving up or encouraging the rest of us to give up.

But you already knew that.

The charge of defeatism leveled at some of the posters here is a misrepresentation, and it doesn't even make much sense. While some posters have expressed disgust at how there seems to be no way out of this current mess, nobody at all has concluded that was should therefore give up all participation and do nothing. That was Glenn's (mocking) addition. What some of you seem to be suggesting is that to come to a forum like this and express exasperation and hopelessness about our chances of success is somehow counterproductive. Well, bullshit. It's all part of the process of diagnosing the problem and being realistic about what can be done, and just because some perspectives are bleak doesn't necessarily make them any less useful to all of us than the more inspirational posts.

And just as important, it's silly for anyone in this forum to accuse another of just complaining without doing anything. Because without knowledge of what any of us are doing outside this forum, we're all doing the same thing. By coming to this site and participating in this dialogue, we're all (except the trollers) contributing to the discussion, helping to shape public consciousness and participating in the democratic process (even if we express hopelessness). The difference between what any one of us posters is doing and what Glenn himself is doing is a difference only in degree, not in kind. So for Glenn to accuse someone who made an honest post of essentially sitting around doing nothing while he, Glenn, is actually doing something is just nonsense.

Glenn, I say this as someone with great admiration for you and what you do: Your posts in this comment thread today have generally come across as petulant and dishonest. Please spend less time commenting in this thread.