"pointlabel"-like function for Python: distribute text labels on a 2-d scatter plot to avoid overlapping labels

[C Barrington-Leigh]

> measure of text overlap (or likely text overlap).  Has anyone written
> or ported such a thing for Python?

Hm (talking to myself)... the link I gave above has some references,
and one of those includes some python code. Seems not packaged up yet
for plots, but may be close:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Map_generator#Placing_labels

Anything better?
c