diff --git a/stack.sh b/stack.sh
index 22a23c81d3..aca49d0ae9 100755
--- a/stack.sh
+++ b/stack.sh
@@ -581,6 +581,10 @@ source $TOP_DIR/tools/install_prereqs.sh
 # Configure an appropriate python environment
 $TOP_DIR/tools/install_pip.sh
 
+# Do the ugly hacks for borken packages and distros
+$TOP_DIR/tools/fixup_stuff.sh
+
+
 # System-specific preconfigure
 # ============================
 
diff --git a/tools/fixup_stuff.sh b/tools/fixup_stuff.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..60d0f468e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/fixup_stuff.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+# **fixup_stuff.sh**
+
+# fixup_stuff.sh
+#
+# All distro and package specific hacks go in here
+# - prettytable 0.7.2 permissions are 600 in the package and
+#   pip 1.4 doesn't fix it (1.3 did)
+# - httplib2 0.8 permissions are 600 in the package and
+#   pip 1.4 doesn't fix it (1.3 did)
+
+# Keep track of the current directory
+TOOLS_DIR=$(cd $(dirname "$0") && pwd)
+TOP_DIR=`cd $TOOLS_DIR/..; pwd`
+
+# Change dir to top of devstack
+cd $TOP_DIR
+
+# Import common functions
+source $TOP_DIR/functions
+
+FILES=$TOP_DIR/files
+
+# Pre-install affected packages so we can fix the permissions
+sudo pip install prettytable
+sudo pip install httplib2
+
+SITE_DIRS=$(python -c "import site; import os; print os.linesep.join(site.getsitepackages())")
+for dir in $SITE_DIRS; do
+
+    # Fix prettytable 0.7.2 permissions
+    if [[ -r $dir/prettytable.py ]]; then
+        sudo chmod +r $dir/prettytable-0.7.2*/*
+    fi
+
+    # Fix httplib2 0.8 permissions
+    httplib_dir=httplib2-0.8.egg-info
+    if [[ -d $dir/$httplib_dir ]]; then
+        sudo chmod +r $dir/$httplib_dir/*
+    fi
+
+done
diff --git a/tools/install_pip.sh b/tools/install_pip.sh
index 0ea8f536f6..6e3e9d2104 100755
--- a/tools/install_pip.sh
+++ b/tools/install_pip.sh
@@ -81,10 +81,12 @@ function install_get_pip() {
 }
 
 function install_pip_tarball() {
-    curl -O $PIP_TAR_URL
-    tar xvfz pip-$INSTALL_PIP_VERSION.tar.gz
-    cd pip-$INSTALL_PIP_VERSION
-    sudo python setup.py install
+    (cd $FILES; \
+        curl -O $PIP_TAR_URL; \
+        tar xvfz pip-$INSTALL_PIP_VERSION.tar.gz; \
+        cd pip-$INSTALL_PIP_VERSION; \
+        sudo python setup.py install; \
+    )
 }
 
 # Show starting versions