A Python implementation of the algorithm used in arc90's readability bookmarklet:

>>> import urllib
>>> import readability
>>> url = 'http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html'
>>> html = urllib.urlopen(url).read()
>>> print readability.readable(url, html)[0]

To directly open the readable version of a URL in the web browser:

$ readability -b http://blog.doughellmann.com/2007/04/pymotw-linecache.html

readability.py is not released yet. To install the development version:

$ pip install -e git://github.com/srid/readability.git#egg=readability

readability.py adds several bug fixes and features to hn.py in the Readable Feeds project that adapted the original hn.py by Nirmal Patel. readability.py retains the original license (GPL3) chosen by its predecessors.