I'm surprised no one has mentioned Pyrex. It can be used to write stand-alone C programs using near-Python syntax:
Pyrex: http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/Pyrex/ Stand-alone how-to: http://www.freenet.org.nz/python/embeddingpyrex/ Pyrex how-to: http://ldots.org/pyrex-guide/, http://www.artfulcode.net/articles/extending-python-pyrex/ (shameless plug, I know) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
