Perl is more fun
Java's often not worth it
PHP's a dumbed down version of an old perl
Perl has CPAN (pro-CPAN points below)
you know whatever you need to do can be done (except maybe hard realtime embedded but even there..) which is good for when you have growing function sets
amazing glue
growing language esp. with parrot which will take over the world etc.
Perl supports professionals as well as newbies while PHP well anyway.
separation of design and html possible
cross-platform
leverages native code via fast modules in C (or whatever)
automatic building on different platforms
line noise is a figment of your imagination
easy to use sophisticated algorithms
slowness is likewise a figment of your bad coding skills etc.
mod_perl with Apache rocks