Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Petty moves from a petty man.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Night Open Thread (Secret Blockquote Fix!)

Sunday Night Open Thread (Secret Blockquote Fix!)

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Because the Esteemed Proprietor is off watching football and the Lexicon is still un-editable, I will share with y’all the Michael Gass Memorial Multi-Paragraph Blockquoting Fix:

Three Dots. Also known as “an ellipsis”. Used between every paragraph you want to link together in your blockquote, like so:

The ellipsis is a most useful tool, when properly applied.
…
As long as the commentor remembers to add those three dots to the cut’n’paste quotations.
…
Also: FYWP!

No jokes yet about Tunch luring Lily into the hot-air balloon yet?

Reader Interactions

76Comments

  2. 2.

    Chad N Freude

    And the Nobel Prize for Computer Science goes to Anne Laurie. For something she actually accomplished.

    Who would have thought that Michael Gass held the secret key? Robert Langdon has nothin’ on our Anne.

  3. 3.

    arguingwithsignposts

    But we demand … to …see …those… credenzas! Why is … Cole … so … silent.

    Was … he … laughing … in … his … condensation?

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    Hmm, let’s give this toy a spin shall we?

    Testing
    …
    Tap, tap, tap, is this thing on?
    …
    KAAAAAHHHHNNNNN!

    EDIT: Wow, it works! Thanks!

    -dms

  6. 6.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @jrg:

    but is it tax deductible? is she given the prize for past performance, or what we expect from her in the future? Do we need to get out a chalkboard and cry?

    Because we’re prepared to do that, because America is such an awesome place /glennbeck

  7. 7.

    superluminar

    @MikeJ

    Tunch is in the helicopter and he’s not laughing.

    And…the Helicopter…cannot…move.
    Also.

  8. 8.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Chad N Freude:

    And the Nobel Prize for Computer Science goes to Anne Laurie. For something she actually accomplished.
    …
    Who would have thought that Michael Gass held the secret key? Robert Langdon has nothin’ on our Anne.

    Can this actually work?

    Not on the first try.

    Yes! On the second try, except, it bolded the quote. Oh well. I can live with that.

  10. 10.

    General Winfield Stuck

    Tunch inside the balloon would have kept it grounded

    Tunch would have barfed, lily would have eaten it while Cole looked on sipping pepperfied coffaaa/

  11. 11.

    Chad N Freude

    @jrg:

    There is no Nobel Prize in Computer Science. The closest thing to a Nobel is the Turing Award. Anne Laurie will have to settle for that.

    Thank you for clarifying that.

    The Nobel Prize for failing to see a sarcastic reference to a recent right-wing pearl-clutch goes to jrg.

  12. 12.

    monkeyboy

    Ummm… “an ellipsis” is supposed to convey meaning, like maybe some text in a quote has been removed. I think it would be better to use a single character like “+” or “¶” or “§” as a paragraph mark.

    Lets test that out:

    Paragraph 1.
    +
    Paragraph 2.

    Paragraph 3.
    §
    Paragraph 4.

    Did they all work?

  15. 15.

    JenJen

    so this is that awesome blockquoting tip
    …
    of Anne’s
    …
    that Laura W tried (unsuccessfully) to show to us
    …
    once! ;-)

    Next question… how do you get rid of the boldface?

  16. 16.

    Jay S

    No jokes yet about Tunch luring Lily into the hot-air balloon yet?

    How about a yeti (plural of yet) joke?

  17. 17.

    monkeyboy

    test the symbols tripled:

    Paragraph 1.
    +++
    Paragraph 2.
    ¶¶¶
    Paragraph 3.
    §§§
    Paragraph 4.

    Did they all work?

  18. 18.

    Chad N Freude

    @monkeyboy: No. But perhaps we could replace the ellipsis with a catch-phrase like “Next Paragraph”.

    And I thought I was pedantic. I yield the crown.

  20. 20.

    monkeyboy

    test the symbols doubled:

    Paragraph 1.
    ++
    Paragraph 2.
    ¶¶
    Paragraph 3.
    §§
    Paragraph 4.
    __
    Paragraph 5.
    —
    Paragraph 6.
    ••
    Paragraph 7.

    Did they all work?

  21. 21.

    dmsilev

    @JenJen: The boldface seems to go away if there’s some text before the blockquote. If that theory is correct, the following blockquote should be bold-free:

    This is a test of the emergency blockquoting system. This is only a test. Had this been an actual blockquote, you would have received an amusing and/or meaningful piece of text.

    OK: The magic trick is that there has to be text before the blockquote, but no blank line between the text and the quote. Blank lines apparently anger the HTML gods.

    -dms

  22. 22.

    Chad N Freude

    @dmsilev: OK, another scientific experiment. Does embedding bold in an unbold blockquote screw things up:

    This is a test of the emergency blockquoting system. This is only a test. Had this been an actual blockquote, you would have received an amusing and/or meaningful piece of text.

    Yes, it makes the whole quote bold. Science marches on.

  25. 25.

    monkeyboy

    Hmmm…. The symbols in my above test between P4 and P5 were two underscore characters – it appears they work but don’t print. Lets make sure that case works:

    Paragraph 1.
    __
    Paragraph 2.
    __
    Paragraph 3.

    Did they all work?

  30. 30.

    dmsilev

    @monkeyboy: Looks good. Now all we need to do is figure out what causes the bolding.

    Some tests:
    Blockquote on same line as preceding text (no space between colon and the bq tag:

    test1

    Blockquote on line following text; no additional blank lines:

    test 2

    Blank line between text and beginning of blockquote:

    test 3

    -dms

  34. 34.

    General Winfield Stuck

    I missed the cutoff day for getting a free windows 7 upgrade by 2 weeks in June when I bought my Dell Vista Os. The Browns lose, again. If it weren’t for a safe Balloon Boy, It all might have been too much.:)

  36. 36.

    Davex99

    Phew. Then it wasn’t just me. I kept trying to blockquote people yesterday and failed miserably.
    Which is of course extra embarrassing while claiming to be a

    webdeveloper

    .

    …did I mention Ubuntu?
    -dave.

  37. 37.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Chad N Freude: I did it because yours was the only one without ellipses already in it. Now, to try the new toy.

    Or, instead of all of this fuckery, John could just ask the tech goddess to fix the blockquoting problem in the programming.
    __
    @RedKitten: You would deprive us of our geekismo?

    I hope this works.

  42. 42.

    monkeyboy

    Final test (with the blockquote starting on a new line below):

    I just want to be sure
    —
    that this underscore hack doesn’t depend on
    __
    lines ending with a period.

    and that

    it also works
    __
    when the blockquote tags
    __
    are on separate lines.

    OK? Got Me?

  44. 44.

    monkeyboy

    Well,

    My above example would have worked
    __
    if I hadn’t typed double dash for double underscore.

    Got Me?

  45. 45.

    Chad N Freude

    @RedKitten:

    “Chop-chop, motherfuckers!”

    I didn’t think your baby was old enough to eat chopped veggies yet. I find your post somewhat cryptic.

  46. 46.

    RedKitten

    @Chad N Freude:
    Efficiency, my friend. Since becoming a parent, I have become adept at performing a multitude of tasks in a very short period of time, and find myself lacking patience for other adults who are not capable of doing the same.

    Anyway, I’m off to bed to try to get some rest before my 4am wake-up call.

  47. 47.

    Bad Horse's Filly

    I’m still shaking my head at what exactly Balloon-Boy’s dad was planning. How did he think this would turn out?

    Block quote test
    __
    Did I do this correctly
    __
    Block quote fail?

    Let’s see how that turns out.

    Edit: Bold fail

  48. 48.

    Chad N Freude

    @RedKitten: Good night. Sweet dreams. [pause] Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! Mmmph! It’s your turn.

    I have been there and I have done that. But it works out well.

  55. 55.

    monkeyboy

    I appears that the front end comment parsing stuff is rather screwed up. In my above test I wanted to see if I could encode a [blockquote] tag (with angle rather than square brackets). It appears to work for individual characters, however when I construct the complete tag with ampersand encoding, the parser goes the extra step and converts the string into a real blockquote.

  58. 58.

    monkeyboy

    [ maybe something like this summary could be appended to the main post ]

    How to use HTML fuckery[1] to fool the front end into making blockquotes work.

    The front-end comment parser to this blog is rather screwed up, such that one can’t just paste some text between blockquote tags and expect it to behave in the conventional fashion, especially if the pasted text contains blank lines because they will turn off the blockquoting.

    However through experimental HTML fuckery a work-around hack has been discovered and will be described here. (Note the front end also defeats some ampersand encoding which prevents showing the hack in terms of the actual characters used which means that in the description when you see something like “[blockquote]” it really means that string with angle rather than square brackets).

    To insert a blockquote it is best to put the opening [blockquote] and closing [/blockquote] tags on separate lines with no blank lines adjacent. Failing to do this may cause the quoted text to be bolded. A correct input text is:

    Lilly said
    [blockquote]
    bow wow burp
    [/blockquote]
    and then went to sleep.

    When the pasted text contains an internal blank line, it should be replaced with two underscore characters (“_”). I’m pretty sure the front-end won’t let me display an example of this, so just accept my word.

    [1] Red Kitten

    Or, instead of all of this fuckery, John could just ask the tech goddess to fix the blockquoting problem in the programming.

    [ arrrgh. The front-end does not let me use a [sup] tag so that I can properly footnote Red Kitten’s terminology. ]

  60. 60.

    Steeplejack

    This is a faux fix. It makes it look like material has been elided between paragraphs. Or, if this becomes accepted, how do I then denote when material has actually been elided.

    I’m sticking with italics until blockquote is truly fixed. FYWP

  62. 62.

    Steeplejack

    Blockquote test based on info above:

    Paragraph 1.
    __
    Paragraph 2.
    __
    Paragraph 3.

    Outside of blockquote again.

  65. 65.

    Steeplejack

    Another test to check putting {blockquote} on separate line. (I put it on the same line as the first paragraph before.)

    Paragraph 1.
    __
    Paragraph 2.
    __
    Paragraph 3.

    If this works, I can live with it. But, still, FYWP. Really.

  66. 66.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack:

    Yeah, it does work. Yee-fucking-haw. And did I mention FYWP?

    Okay, having said all that, I have nothing to blockquote or add to this thread at this time. I’ll just piss off, then, shall I?

  68. 68.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    @dmsilev: And don’t forget to sacrifice a can of tuna so Tunch will smile upon the formatting of your comment.

    This. Also:

    This is a faux fix. It makes it look like material has been elided between paragraphs. Or, if this becomes accepted, how do I then denote when material has actually been elided.I’m sticking with italics until blockquote is truly fixed. FYWP

    At one point deleting to get rid of the old formatting and then hitting return to create a new paragraph worked.

    This is a faux fix. It makes it look like material has been elided between paragraphs. Or, if this becomes accepted, how do I then denote when material has actually been elided.

    I’m sticking with italics until blockquote is truly fixed. FYWP

    If this doesn’t work I can just edit it. Oh no I can’t because this platform h8s FF.

  69. 69.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    Nope, that no longer works. And apparently a link before a blockquote undoes the deboldification magic.

    Or it is an evil racist plot to single out FF users!

    But dms’s point still stands. The ellipsis makes it look like … text has been removed.

  70. 70.

    Chuck

    The HTML tag is a most useful tool when properly applied. WordPress can’t apply it properly. It just needs to auto-close tags at the end of a post, not the end of a paragraph. Knowing the way WP is designed, it’s probably the theme breaking it or something.

    Anyway, instead of ellipsis, I recommend [FYWP]

  71. 71.

    Michael Gass

    As many of you have read, I created quite a stir on John Cole’s Balloon-Juice Blog.

    While people thought the whole “balloon boy” situation funny, I, on the other hand, did not. Reasoned arguments failed and as the comments went on, it got confrontational. I ended up sending my copies of my credentials to John Cole and Dougj.

    In addition, Balloon-Juice decided to take a poke at me about html formatting. If your biggest bitch is format, you are in trouble.

    And this leads me to get indepth on exactly why this entire situation isn’t funny…

    1) Let’s make up a publicity stunt with a balloon and a 6 year-old kid in danger.

    It grabs headlines. We’ll be in the news. The nations focus will be on OUR family. Can’t you just see the hollywood deals on the horizon?

    Here’s the reality. Filing a false police report is a crime. The person just isn’t charged and jailed, their family becomes responsible for charges generated in the rescue effort. I heard it off-hand, so I don’t know how accurate it is, but, I’m hearing as much as a million dollars in damages and restitution plus around 6-8 years in prison.

    One action will bankrupt a family. One action will put the father in prison for years. The mother will now, for all intents and purposes, be acting as a single mother trying to raise three kids.

    Worse, this family, having done reality shows, have started raising their kids that you can lie, generate a false emergency, and its ok because you are simply trying to get those big bucks and a show.

    This is a family tragedy based on stupidity. But, it’s a tragedy none-the-less, because there is a chance that this will break up the entire family.

    2) This publicity stunt pulled state-wide resources and National Guard resources.

    Once the balloon went up, law enforcement went on the information given — boy in a balloon. They then used every available asset to try and track the balloon. They had to get numerous county agencies involved. They had to get the state agencies involved. It took someone in the Governors mansion giving the OK for the National Guard to mobilize a helicopter. And you have every one of these individuals for two and a half hours hoping for the best while trying to steel themselves for the worst.

    3) Ah, it was a scam… let’s laugh…

    Yes, it was a scam. The cops didn’t know it. The EMT’s that were coordinated to be on scene didn’t know it. The National Guard didn’t know it. So, for these folks, there was no joke.

    Let me ram this home…

    Our shift worked off-duty providing security at the football stadium. I was Sergeant of the shift. An elderly man went into cardiac arrest. One of my officers got there in seconds and had started CPR within minutes. EMT’s arrived withing minutes and took over doing CPR. He was called “DOA” enroute to the hospital. I was devastated for two weeks.

    When I was on the road, our motto was “everyone goes home”. Civilian, cop, didn’t matter. We didn’t lose anyone. But, that day, we did. It wasn’t due to anyone’s fault. It didn’t matter. We lost one. I was pulled from the road for a week because I was so devastated.

    Now, put that mentality into all of the cops chasing the balloon. Put that mentality into the EMT’s. The helicopter pilots. All who were steeling themselves for the possibility that a kid could be dead.

    Well, this doesn’t penetrate into some peoples minds. Instead, lets mock people who simply aren’t part of our little cadre or clique. Let’s put their name up as an example to others; if you don’t “go along to get along”, you will be the brunt of our hammer.

    This was a situation DESIGNED to be bad. A situation that held a lot of risk, for the kid, for the family. And when it backfired, they are now figuring that out.

    I’ve yet to see anything funny about it.

  72. 72.

    licensed to kill time

    I’m just over here in an old thread checking to see if the edit function has miraculously returned.

    Also, Michael Gass is a gas, gas, gas! But I’ve yet to see anything funny about it.

  73. 73.

    licensed to kill time

    Testing, testing, 1 2 3

    this is a test of your emergency block quote system
    __
    This is only a test.
    __
    The emergency block quote test is now concluded.

    Will it work? And where the hell did the edit function go?

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