So the Seattle Times has a story up on its main page about the Washington State Liquor Control Board delaying its process for considering later bar hours in Seattle (and elsewhere) because the WSLCB is now absorbed in hashing out the details of how to implement liquor privatization in the state.

Here's my problem: They're running the story of a "likely delay" as if that were a hot ticket news item but really it's not. You see, the WSLCB hadn't even gotten far enough into its rule making process to devise a timeline to be delayed (if you look over here at this handy chart, we're still in phase "101" of the rule making process).

"There have been informal discussions [between the city and the WSLCB] on how to proceed since I-1183 passed but since there wasn't a plan in place there's not much I can say about the delay," confirms the mayor's spokesman, Aaron Pickus. So while it's pretty clear the process will take longer thanks to the passage of I-1183, it's hard to quantify delays on a timeline that never existed.

It would be like me announcing on Slog that I am going to delay getting sperminated for a few years and Slog being all, "What the fuck? When was that going to happen? I thought your womb was bricked with salt licks!" And then me saying, "It was going to happen eventually—that's what the deer up there are for—but now it's been delayed."

Make sense?