1. All that proves is that one language or another is faster at doing simple, classic synthetic tests. These do not always adjust well to real applications. In real circumstances, I/O and user interaction are the bottleneck in many cases, and higher-level, more functional languages allow you to more easily develop superior algorithms which will make things faster by working less, not working faster.
2. It's completely understandable that more static languages with less features, such as C, C++, Pascal or Java have faster compilers.
3. Who gives a fuck? If Python's gonna be 18 times slower than C,
which I doubt for some cases, AND that's considering the C implementation is the same quality, AND that will make something too slow to be bearable, then I'll buy better hardware. It's cheaper than my time dealing with C static typing bullshit and lack of features.