issues simply parsing a whitespace-delimited textfile in python script

[Damon Getsman]

Okay, so I manged to kludge around the issue by not using
the .readline() in my 'for' statement.  Instead, I'm slurping the
whole file into a new list that I put in for that purpose, and
everything seems to be working just fine.  However, I don't know WHY
the other method failed and I'm at a loss for why that didn't work and
this is working.  I'd really like to know the why about this issue so
that I don't have to use crappy coding practice and kludge around it
the next time I have an issue like this.

Any ideas much appreciated.

Damon G.