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On the one hand, this patch is a bit of a hack, but on the other hand, finding 
a good solution that everybody can agree on may take a long time. I think 
therefore that it is OK to accept this patch (as written by Noam) now, and 
come back to this issue later if and when a more profound solution is found.

The patch that I wrote (I put a link to it in one of the comments below) goes 
beyond what people agreed on on python-dev, so I think it is not appropriate 
to accept it now. You can just disregard it.