Perhaps have an option within the markdown processor to limit output to no more than N chars. Or, a smart html truncation function that we run after converting from markdown.
e.g. /motorola/a1600/news/ which has a link at the current truncation point.
Fix is on js/2231. I used a helper I found on the web which does what we need. To test, make a blog entry with a link in it around the truncation point. Make sure the link text gets truncated to the right size, but the link should also get a closing html tag.
Merged to dev.