total idiot question: +=, .=, etc...

[Preston Landers]

Hi there,

another question in this popular series of foolish questions...

Can someone *please* give me a good reason why Python doesn't yet have 
+=, -=, and .= and other such operators?  I know it's just syntactic
sugar, but damn, it is such sweet sugar!

Also, if this is in 1.5.2+, please forgive me, as I'm not up to speed
on the new versions yet.  And I have searched the FAQ for this
question but have not found it.

many thanks,

---Preston