As an absolute beginner, I actually feel qualified to contribute to a Hacker News thread. Pardon my excitement! As to the question at hand, I have found Zed A. Shaw's "Learn Python the Hard Way" e-book to be extremely helpful. As far as I remember, it assumes no prior knowledge of programming and gets you started right away on tutorials, opting to explain everything after you have the given code up and running. It certainly helps to burn the syntax of a given language into your brain through repetition and has ample amounts of humor peppered throughout.

You'll find this book, as well as a number of other books in the series, all freely available at the site: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/