I totally did not expect this!

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/which-programming-languages-are-fastest.php?calc=chart&gcc=on&gpp=on&javasteady=on&ghc=on&ifc=on&sbcl=on&vw=on&python3=on

GCC and G++ are the fastest. That's the norm.
Java7 faster than Haskell and Fortran. WTF?
LispSBCL and SmalltalkVW faster than Python 3. Jesus Christ.

>>4
The great thing about abstract, higher-level languages happens when one programmer writes abstract logic; the compiler can do more work optimising the code. The thing about lower level languages is that the programmer must expend a lot of effort to control the compiler to get it to write optimal code.