I've benchmarked Victor's patch and got the following results:

Report on Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.38.8-desktop-9.mga #1 SMP Tue Dec 20 09:45:44 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64
Total CPU cores: 4

### call_simple ###
Min: 0.223778 -> 0.209204: 1.07x faster
Avg: 0.227634 -> 0.212437: 1.07x faster
Significant (t=15.40)
Stddev: 0.00291 -> 0.00248: 1.1768x smaller
Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/87vkdps

### fastpickle ###
Min: 0.484052 -> 0.499832: 1.03x slower
Avg: 0.487370 -> 0.507909: 1.04x slower
Significant (t=-8.40)
Stddev: 0.00261 -> 0.00481: 1.8446x larger
Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/7ntcudz

### float ###
Min: 0.052819 -> 0.051540: 1.02x faster
Avg: 0.054304 -> 0.052922: 1.03x faster
Significant (t=3.89)
Stddev: 0.00125 -> 0.00126: 1.0101x larger
Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/7rqfurw

### formatted_logging ###
Min: 0.252709 -> 0.257303: 1.02x slower
Avg: 0.254741 -> 0.259967: 1.02x slower
Significant (t=-4.90)
Stddev: 0.00155 -> 0.00181: 1.1733x larger
Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/8xu2zdt

### normal_startup ###
Min: 0.450661 -> 0.435943: 1.03x faster
Avg: 0.454536 -> 0.438212: 1.04x faster
Significant (t=9.41)
Stddev: 0.00327 -> 0.00209: 1.5661x smaller
Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/8ygw272

### nqueens ###
Min: 0.269426 -> 0.255306: 1.06x faster
Avg: 0.270105 -> 0.255844: 1.06x faster
Significant (t=28.63)
Stddev: 0.00071 -> 0.00086: 1.2219x larger
Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/823dwzo

### regex_compile ###
Min: 0.390307 -> 0.380736: 1.03x faster
Avg: 0.391959 -> 0.382025: 1.03x faster
Significant (t=8.93)
Stddev: 0.00194 -> 0.00156: 1.2395x smaller
Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/72shbzh

### silent_logging ###
Min: 0.060115 -> 0.057777: 1.04x faster
Avg: 0.060241 -> 0.058019: 1.04x faster
Significant (t=13.29)
Stddev: 0.00010 -> 0.00036: 3.4695x larger
Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/76bfguf

### unpack_sequence ###
Min: 0.000043 -> 0.000046: 1.07x slower
Avg: 0.000044 -> 0.000047: 1.06x slower
Significant (t=-107.47)
Stddev: 0.00000 -> 0.00000: 1.1231x larger
Timeline: http://tinyurl.com/6us6yys

The following not significant results are hidden, use -v to show them:
call_method, call_method_slots, call_method_unknown, fastunpickle, iterative_count, json_dump, json_load, nbody, pidigits, regex_effbot, regex_v8, richards, simple_logging, startup_nosite, threaded_count.


In short, any difference is in the noise.