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Well, I have what appears to be a working solution:  Use
python 2.5a0 from CVS.  This version works with psyco.  I
suspect the bug fix to gcmodules.c that added the missing
INCREF is the culprit (the one labelled as a backport
candidate).

As for why the assert was triggering, I have my thoughts. 
First, gdb when trying to read the core files was confirming
the absolute path to the (non-debug) executable I thought I
was running but also would not give a valid traceback due to
stack corruption.  Is it possible that the memory corruption
was making it where (__ASSERT_VOID_CAST (0)) was unable to
succeed?  (This is what assert(expr) is macro'd to when
defining NDEBUG.)

Thanks.