If you are interested in document conversion using LO and python you can give it a try to https://github.com/xrmx/pylokit which is a python cffi wrapper for the stable api of LibreOfficeKit.
As a jquery.transmit user I'd say that that the major advantage of js vs plain css3 is in terms of lines of code, especially wrt to browser prefixes. Then I really like to have the timing of animation explicit in js code near the usual .animate(), fadeIn(), setTimeout(), etc... instead of having to check two places.