For stuff like string handling, text processing and even variable interpolation, Perl blows Python and Ruby out of the water (and despite criticizing Perl's regex, Python ended up copying it almost identically). Much of this power stems from Perl's much-derided use of sigils (e.g. $scalar, @array, %hash) and context.
Personally, I find Perl's
$header2 = "Dear $title $name,";
to be more readable than Python's
header2 = "Dear %(title)s %(name)s," % vars()
Another benefit to using sigils is that it's immediately clear when reading code what type of data is being referred to, while in other languages you often have to read back through the code.
On the other hand, Python has done a great job in positioning itself as the new BASIC (in a good way), and so of course Python gets much more exposure in the educational setting and thus has greater mind-share amongst younger coders.
Python is simpler and easier to learn well than Perl, but nevertheless Perl is a very powerful and useful language that takes a lot of undeserved criticism (e.g. see the comment of wyuenho in this thread).
Incidentally, I found the Google Trends link hilarious, as all the news snippets on the right of the page refer to people called Ruby and actual Python snakes (hey, maybe people are searching for things other than programming languages..)!