randomly pull items out of a list using weights for each item (with replacement)

random-weighted.py

from math import *
import random


w = [0.9,0.1] #faster if the weighted list is pre-sorted, descending
p = ['victor', 'powell']
N = len(w)

p2 = []
for i in range(N):
    stop = 0
    n = random.random()
    for j in range(N):
        stop += w[j]
        if n < stop:
            p2.append(p[j])
            break
print p2