There's so many solutions to the "speed" argument I don't even see it as an issue.

   - C-extentions (many std and 3rd party libs that need speed are written in C) 
   - numpy http://numpy.scipy.org/ 
   - numba https://github.com/numba/numba 
   - cython http://www.cython.org/ 
   - pyrex http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/Pyrex/
   - http://psyco.sourceforge.net/ -> PyPy (some day...)