PHP is often more visible because it is more used and easier to write... But if PHP wasn't that popular, we would see the same issue with Perl, Python, etc.
The point I wanted to emphasize is that by reading lists like these new users might think that this is a good way to write PHP, whereas I strongly disagree with this list existing in the first place.
There's also the slightly selfish point of view of not wanting to have to clean up code like this should I come across it in future ;)
Plus, did you ever read a PHP book? Most of them give bad examples and bad code practices too... I just read one that said to disable all apache logging (including error logging) for performance reasons.
"There are people who actually like programming. I don't understand why they like programming."
see also his other gems http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rasmus_Lerdorf
PHP is far from my favorite language but "language wars" and comments like yours that lead to them are 100% brain dead. Void of original thought.
I see a little irony in people like you cursing PHP as unnecessary and ugly when you are spending your time spewing comments with those same traits.