What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers? This is an open thread: all topics welcome.

It’s all Olympics at my house. Links on memorable Olympics moments and controversies (real and phony) are after the jump.

The big news for most Iowans this week was Gabby Douglas taking the gold in the individual all-around women’s gymnastics competition and helping the U.S. women win the team gold. She did so well under unimaginable pressure, and I doubt she will lose sleep over a few people criticizing her hairstyle.

The biggest scandal of this Olympics is the expulsion of several badminton pairs for throwing matches. One of the disqualified athletes has retired from the sport. I disagree with those who say the players shouldn’t have been punished for a legitimate strategic decision. In the Olympics you should try your best.

People continue to debate whether South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius should have been allowed to compete with two prostheses below the knee. What do you think?

Many world records have been set in the swimming competitions. Missy Franklin was way ahead of world record pace in the 200-meter backstroke, and Sun Yang of China destroyed his own world record in the men’s 1500-meter yesterday.

Ryan Lochte dominated the last swimming world championships and came into this Olympics talking about how “this is my time.” He finished with five medals (two gold, two silver, one bronze), which is extremely impressive, but not the six golds he was looking for. Lochte’s big rival Michael Phelps set a record that will probably never be broken: 22 career Olympics medals, 18 of them gold.

I missed Serena Williams’ convincing victory over Maria Sharapova for the tennis singles gold. She is the best women’s tennis player ever, period. (Martina Navratilova is still the most influential.) To the people who criticized Serena’s victory dance, I say, “Get a life.”

I caught most of Andy Murray taking the gold in straight sets against Roger Federer this morning. No one can say he didn’t earn it. He also beat Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the semi-final.

Host nation Great Britain is having a pretty good Olympics so far, with golds in the men’s 10K and women’s heptathlon this weekend before Murray’s victory. Losing in penalty kicks to South Korea in football (soccer) on Saturday was painful, though.

NBC’s Olympics coverage remains extremely poor. We’re lucky to see even the medalists in the lesser-known sports, and without seeing the other competitors we don’t get a sense of why the top athletes are on a higher level.