This has been an interesting week in the news with the biggest story by far revolving around Bangladeshi conjoined twins. They were successfully separated in Melbourne this week following a 28 hour operation. Joined at the head, they shared many blood vessels, and, more importantly, relied on the one twin for many of the vital functions such as kidneys. The operation so far has been a resounding success - we have great doctors when it comes to these major forms of surgery.

Of course, there are times when we don't look after our own children well enough and we rely on doctors to then put all the pieces back together again. The story this week, again from Melbourne, involved a car with five children, none of whom where wearing any form of restraint, being involved in a motor vehicle accident. Fortunately they only suffered minor injuries - but it could have been so much worse. I hope they throw the book at the parents or those responsible at the time.

But then, we do go to the extreme. In Western Australia police have been criticized for arresting and charging a 12 year old boy for 'receiving stolen property', namely a 90 cent fredo frog. Many have been up in arms over this - I don't agree. First, the boy has been a problem child who has been warned on several occasions in the past for his behavior. But why do we put on a value on crime. If we say 90 cents is not worth going to court over - when is it worth going to court, nine dollars, ninety dollars, nine hundred dollars? The moment we put a value on when crime is worth policing is when we start to get anarchy. You can now steal 90 cent fredo frogs - the public will complain if you are arrested and charged.

Of course, McDonalds don't have to worry about fredo frogs. They have bigger issues like being awarded three gongs in the Australian Shame Awards. I don't agree with these three - they were for "its sponsorship of a high school maths website (the Techno Hack category), the Pester Power award for animated Happy Meal TV ads featuring play equipment, and the Bad Sport category for sponsorship of grassroots state Little Athletics competitions."

The problem is, love McDonalds or hate them, they are sponsoring these activities for our kids. Chances are, without McDonalds these programs would not be sponsored at all. If we are to have shame awards, it should either be the Little Athletics Association for example for accepting McDonalds sponsorship, or the community at large for not providing alternative sponsorship funding.

That was the week that was in Australian news.