I don't remember the details, but upon looking at the Python manual a few months ago, it seemed that it was way behind Perl 5. For example, no Unicode support. I found that the next major version of Python was going to address some of these, but don't know the schedule.

The only thing I could find that Python did "better" was that it compiled down to a byte-code binary, as that was one of its design goals.

So, grab the Python manual and go though it, and you'll have no trouble finding things to tell your friend about how out-of-date Python is.