Yum! Analysts and investors alike eagerly gobbled up the first quarter earnings surprise for Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), sending the stock up 6%, to $66.91 as of late afternoon, an increase of $3.79. The shares were briefly over $69, an all-time high for the company. The 70 cents-per-share profit was a 14% increase from the year-ago quarter and six cents ahead of analyst consensus.

The favorable results are even more of a surprise given that Yum! has taken several hits with its brands this year, from a rat infestation at a combined Taco Bell/KFC restaurant in New York to a lawsuit over the E-coli outbreak of Q4 2006, and has yet to discover any benefit from the removal of trans fat at its KFC restaurants.

Despite all the world's concentration on the obesity epidemic, the rise in popularity of organic foods, and the general frowning-upon marketing of fast food and other unhealthy choices to children; it seems like a great time to be the owner of some fast food stock.

[Photo kanepsphotography.]

Back in 2000 two GE employees, followed by five more in 2002, claimed that GE passed off defective jet turbine parts to the US military. Some made their way into new machinery, others for spare parts. As the suit progressed the US government, investigating the plant, joined the employees in the suit against GE.

GE agreed to settle this for $11.5 million, however maintains that management did this solely to 'put it behind' them and move on, and strongly disputed the allegations made.

Lest one think this is about opportunist employees, only 20% of the money will go to the individual employees, the rest goes to the US government, which decided to join the suit. One does wonder what sort of impact this might have on future government dealings with that section of GE, as it seems to have come to the same conclusion as the employees.

Friday, a Starbucks (SBUX) in Newport, Kentucky apologized to a group of local Democrats for kicking them out last Wednesday night. Seems the fairly large group (about fifteen or twenty members), which included county chair, Kathy Groob, had met at that locale last month without incident and expected everything to be hunky-dory again this time. But store employees told the Dems that a district manager had said political meetings or discussion weren't allowed in the store. This really isn't the case, and company officials have now apologized to the group and told them they are, in fact, welcome. Groob sounded less than fully satisfied with the outcome. Having said she found being bounced "humiliating" she also said: "I just hope they deal with the employees who overstepped their bounds."

Hmm. Very possible the kids who make the drinks and wipe off the tables did misenterpret some too-vague or too-broadly written corporate guideline, and maybe got an education in the ideals of free speech and free assembly in the bargain, but that is all that is really called for. Starbucks is in that quasi-public arena, like supermarket parking lots, which are private space, but still seen by many as community gathering points.