Employees of Dow Jones & Co.'s (NYSE: DJ) Wall Street Journal have been threatening to walk off the job for nearly a month now, and it appears that today is the day. In a statement published at Poynter Online, WSJ employees are making clear that their greatest and overt concern is the prospering of journalistic integrity. The walkout, it is indicated, shall only be for a partial day, but the message sent is undeniable. Wall Street Journal employees are concerned that new ownership of the company could threaten the quality of that publication and the individual work experience.

It goes without saying that WSJ editorial staff is some of, if not the absolute, finest in the country. By taking this stand and making this statement, WSJ employees are not only demanding that their personal concerns be addressed, but the are also sending a strong message across this nation. That message, like it or not, is the heart wrenching fact that freedom of the press is being pressured in this country and it's time for information connoisseurs of the content provision and reception camps to take notice that we need to maintain constant vigilance over our precious First Amendment.

As a supporter of free information and worker's rights, I hereby give my statement of support for the actions taken by WSJ employees today. I've never been an advocate of labor strikes but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I truly hope that this temporary walk-out shall be an effective means to the goals of fair workers' compensation and journalistic integrity at The Wall Street Journal. In a side note, as of this writing, Dow Jones is down 1.5% today.

Independence, integrity and fair employee compensation, you can't get more American than that, now can you?

McDonald's Corp (NYSE: MCD) will be reporting on its fiscal first quarter earnings next Friday the 20. The stock has had a pretty nice run over the last year with shares climbing over 35% since last July. Will this impressive run continue after next week?

If past performance is any indication, there is a strong possibility that McDonald's won't let the market down. It has a great history of meeting or surpassing analyst estimates. The last time that the company was unable to meet estimates was back on January 28, 2005 when it missed by just a penny.

This time around analysts are expecting to see McDonald's report $0.62 per share when it announces its first quarter numbers before the market opens next Friday. For the first quarter last year, the company matched its estimates when it reported $0.49 per share.

There hasn't been a whole lot of news surrounding the fast food giant lately, other than troubles it has run into in China. After being accused of underpaying its employees in the country, China officially cleared the company of any wrongdoing. While it is good news to hear, if you read the fine print of the news release you see that the only reason that the company was cleared is because China does not legally protect the working conditions of working students.

Last week McDonald's announced that it will give unions a bigger presence in its Chinese restaurants, so we can expect to hear a little more on this subject during the conference call next week.