Instead of choosing one over the other, why not choose both? I specialise in both PHP and Python. For web projects on commodity hardware, nothing beats PHP, especially when used with powerful frameworks such as Zend, Yii or Drupal. For installable programs or scripting, Python works well with wxPython.

>> Quoted from article: "It was around this point that I decided I'd rather be an unemployed Pythonist than an employed LAMP developer."

Sorry man, I'd rather be an employed LAMP developer, but with a few side projects in Python. It's just a programming language, not a religion. :D