I'm not sure this is the correct place to do this, but I found the need 
for a python-config (similar to sdl-config, etc.) when building an 
C++ application that embeds python.

It accepts two arguments --cflags and --static-libs:

# ./python-config --cflags --static-libs 
-I/usr/include/python2.4
/usr/lib/python2.4/config/libpython2.4.a

I guess it could be expanded to do more, but it was all I needed.