I'm only vaguely familiar with Python; what about it makes it increasingly popular?

Some non-technical, "political" reasons I can think of are:

• Google apparently prefer Python to Perl as a development language. The Google App Engine currently only supports Python. They also hired Guido van Rossum and Alex Martelli.
• Microsoft seem more interested in Python than Perl as a .NET language.
• High profile Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth supports Python and apparently wants to move towards making Python the de-facto programming language on the Ubuntu Linux desktop.
• The one laptop per child project chose Python.

Update (2023): Now that Guido has left Google for Microsoft will we see Python adoption rising at Microsoft and falling at Google?

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