@...The judge in the United bankruptcy hearing last Friday summoned Glenn Tiltin and top United executives to a closed door meeting to discuss his looming retirement from the bench and its effect on the proceedings. Judge Reicart released a statement following the meeting, "At the age of 59 I took on the United bankruptcy case fully expecting to resolve it prior to my mandatory retirement from the bench, but as the years have dragged on I have come to the conclusion I may not live to see the end of these proceedings and the prudent thing is to pass the case on to a 30 year old judge that has a shot of wrapping up the case in his lifetime." The new presiding judge will be Alfred Jackson from the Chicago federal court. Jackson immediately asked Tiltin to bring all its consultants, lawyers, forecasts, and forecasting tools to a large basketball arena in suburban Chicago where he would be able to address all the parties involved. Members of the press stood quietly as hundreds of consultants filed into the arena followed by nearly 1,000 attorneys. A large tractor trailer arrived with hundreds of thousands of legal documents as well as an extra large solid gold Magic 8-ball branded with the words "8-Ball Extreme Edition by Blammo". After several hours, Judge Jackson emerged from the arena to the press room to discuss the events of the meeting. "The one thing we could agree on regarding United is that a very profitable airline could be formed just to fly around all of United's consultants and attorneys," said Judge Jackson. "When they unveiled the magic 8-ball I knew we were in trouble. Tiltin actually has a ritual he goes through before each use of it. He gets on his knees and sways back and forth chanting 'oh ball that knows all, give us the answer we seek, we know things look bleak, but into the future we need peek.' There is then a lot of shouting of affirmation by the board of directors and finally they pose a question such as: 'Oh ball, that know all, is our growth done yet with the regional jet?'. Apparently it all has to rhyme. I think a team of the consultants writes this stuff. Fortunately the ball said 'apparently so'. I'm cleaning out these buffoons; give me a couple of weeks."