I've just installed a base gentoo stage 3 and I get the following error when i try and call time.time():

sbx / # python
import time
Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, May 22 2011, 14:53:09)
[GCC 4.4.5] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import time
>>> time.time()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
IOError: [Errno 0] Error

I found this because when I try and run emerge I get:

sbx / # emerge
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/emerge", line 32, in 
    from _emerge.main import emerge_main
  File "/usr/lib/portage/pym/_emerge/main.py", line 6, in 
    import logging
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/logging/__init__.py", line 94, in 
    _startTime = time.time()
IOError: [Errno 11] Resource temporarily unavailable

This is a custom kernel and I just made sure I compiled in RTC support, but still no luck.  Any ideas on why this is happening?
Did it work before your custom kernel? Boot into a rescue CD, chroot into your gentoo env, and run your script. If it works, it's your kernel. That's about as specific as I can be.
Python time.time() -> IOError