diff -r cc60d0283fad Lib/urllib/request.py
--- a/Lib/urllib/request.py	Fri May 20 16:55:06 2011 +0200
+++ b/Lib/urllib/request.py	Fri May 20 18:15:16 2011 +0200
@@ -1733,7 +1733,6 @@
 
     def http_error_default(self, url, fp, errcode, errmsg, headers):
         """Default error handler: close the connection and raise IOError."""
-        void = fp.read()
         fp.close()
         raise HTTPError(url, errcode, errmsg, headers, None)
 
@@ -1924,7 +1923,6 @@
             newurl = headers['uri']
         else:
             return
-        void = fp.read()
         fp.close()
 
         # In case the server sent a relative URL, join with original: