Without the changes:
$ time (i=0; while [ $i -lt 100 ]; do PYTHONPATH=lib python -munittest -v bb.tests.fetch.URLHandle >/dev/null 2>&1; i=$((i+1)); done; )

real	0m16.509s
user	0m15.273s
sys	0m0.932s

With the changes:
$ time (i=0; while [ $i -lt 100 ]; do PYTHONPATH=lib python -munittest -v bb.tests.fetch.URLHandle >/dev/null 2>&1; i=$((i+1)); done; )

real	0m16.458s
user	0m15.169s
sys	0m0.996s