The block is basically a list of new transactions (new as in since the previous block). Each transaction is already confirmed in one sense - it has the signature of the owner(s) of the bitcoins that are going into it (i.e. the signatures of whoever's spending in that transaction). But this is only one level of confirmation - confirmation that, up to the last block, those signature owners still had those bitcoins. The problem would be that those owners could spend the same bitcoins into more than one transaction. That's the point of the blockchain; it creates one uniquely valid version of history - the only valid transaction history is the one in the longest chain of blocks. If two different blocks are created simultaneously, with the spending happening more than once, one of those blocks will become "orphaned" and ignored.
Helping?
Helping a lot, but the problem I have with that story is that the blockchain, basically, is a series of hashes. A hash, being an irreversible operation, doesn't tell you anything about the state of accounts. It's possible to put the information into the hash, but impossible to get it out of it. How in the hell do you verify that an account has x amount of BTC?
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