Thanks for the reply, Alan.

My hard drive space is adequate with at least 50% space available on the 
partition where /var lives.

There are 2 versions of python installed but 2.6.5-r1 is the active one.
dev-lang/python:     2.6.5-r1, 3.1.2-r2

The Portage version is 2.1.8.3. 

I have attached results of my emerge --info for reference also. 

I am very perplexed about this especially since I had not made any changes to 
my systems.  Recall that this happened to all 3 of my Gentoo installs, not on 
just one. One install is on a different computer. The 2 on the same computer 
use different partitions.

I estimate the problem began about 2 weeks ago, but I can't be sure. I am 
aware that not all emerged packages generate error, log or warn messages. I 
just realized that nothing was being written to /var/log/portage/elog on any 
of my 3 Gentoo installs. Then I noticed that duplicate emerge logs were being 
written to /var/log/portage for each package that was emerge with # uNDv 
world.  I had never seen that before.

I suspect that some package that was emerged approximately 2 weeks ago has 
caused this change, but I still haven't found what has happened.  If this were 
only on one of my Gentoo installs, I would suspect something with that 
computer. But when I update with -uNDv world, I do it on all 3 the same day. 
Now all 3 have the same identical problem. 

For what it is worth, I am the only one with access to these computers so I 
know it is nothing I have done. I must have missed some message or warning.

Also, when I do the # emerge -uNDv world, and the emerge finishes, there are 
no errors reported in the Terminal - just a clean finish.

I have seen some posts on the forums about people having problems with this:

	PORTAGE_ELOG_SYSTEM="save mail"

However, I don't use mail there - my entry in /etc/make.conf is:

	PORTAGE_ELOG_SYSTEM="save"

I wonder if this could be a portage issue - maybe I should downgrade to a 
previous portage version.

This is all very strange to me.

Thanks again.

billyd