What is the meaning of the astarisk in Python

[Lee Harr]

In article <3f6ce54f$0$10962$fa0fcedb at lovejoy.zen.co.uk>, John Dean wrote:
> Hi
> Below is a line taken from Andy Dustman's MySQLdb module:
> def Connect(*args, **kwargs):
> 
> I would be grateful if somebody explain the meaning of the astarisks, since
> I was under the impression that pointers are not used in Python and the
> above look very must like pointers to me
> 


http://python.org/doc/current/tut/node6.html#SECTION006600000000000000000
http://python.org/doc/current/tut/node6.html#SECTION006720000000000000000
http://python.org/doc/current/tut/node6.html#SECTION006730000000000000000