python stdin example

soinput.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

'''
usage:
cat about.txt | python soinput.py
'''

import sys

def read_in():
    lines = sys.stdin.readlines()
    for i in range(len(lines)):
        lines[i] = lines[i].replace('\n','')
    #print lines
    return lines

def main():
    lines = read_in()
    print lines

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Most likely you don't want to remove all whitespace from the line, only the trailing newline

def read_in():
   return [x.rstrip('\n') for x in sys.stdin ]