Help with python-list archives

[random joe]

Hi. I am new to python and wanted to search the python-list archives
for answers to my many questions but i can't seem to get the archive
files to uncompressed? What gives? From what i understand they are
gzip files so i assumed the gzip module would work, but no! The best i
could do was to get a ton of chinese chars using gzip and
zlib.uncompress(). I would like to be courteous and search for my
answers before asking so as not to waste anyones time. Does anyone
know how to uncompress these files into a readable text form?