convert list of tuples into several lists

[Steven Bethard]

Diez B. Roggisch wrote:
> zip(*[(1,4),(2,5),(3,6)])

While this is also the approach I would use, it is worth noting that 
Guido thinks of this as an abuse of the argument passing machinery:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-July/037346.html

Steve