Optional Static Typing

[Luis M. Gonzalez]

I don't understand why this discussion on optional static typing came
up right at this moment.
As far as I know, it has been discussed many times in the past, and
there even was a SIG that simply died... but it seems that it never was
something of much interest to python developers (that's my impression,
I might be wrong).

Now, that the Pypy project is steadily advancing (and which is aimed at
making Python faster while keeping it dynamic and simple), why has this
topyc been raised?

Also there's starkiller, which deals with agressive type inference and
compilation to native code. If these projects are serious and are well
headed, then I don't know why we are talking now of static typing.

Lets say that Pypy and/or Starkiller end up as succesful projects, what
would be the advantage of having static typing in Python?