# given this function

def a(**kwargs):
    pass

# this works
a(**{'b':'c'})

# this throws a format error
a(**{u'b':'c'})

I am using a web framework (TurboGears w/ genshi templating) which often
pass around dictionaries as keyword arguments in order to have 1 to 1
representation of json data and URL parameters.  This is usually fine
except when using libraries such as simplejson which encodes all of the
keywords as unicode.

Attached is a patch which is most likely just the tip of the iceberg but
hopefully it turns out to be this easy.