dyork: That Python vs. Scheme page is out of date with respect to Python. Python 2.1 (or 2.2?) added proper closures, with lexical scoping. Python 2.0 added support for collecting cyclical structures, with improvements to the gc API since then. (Eg, you can get a list of all uncollected references, since cycled with object which implement __del__ are not automatically gc'ed.)

In the meanwhile, working on documentation for one of my clients. Yawn, but it pays the mortage.