That's not a good idiom, because it only allows you to loop over small ranges:

  >>> for i in range(1000000000):
  ...     print i
  ... 
  python2.4(1261) malloc: *** vm_allocate(size=4000002048) failed (error code=3)
  python2.4(1261) malloc: *** error: can't allocate region
  python2.4(1261) malloc: *** set a breakpoint in szone_error to debug
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  MemoryError

Why attempt to allocate such a large list when you just want to do something several times?