Python, MySQL, and Unicode

The top google result for the search terms mysql, python, and unicode is a blog post that recommends using the init_command option to the construct a MySQLdb connection to run the SQL 'SET NAMES utf8'. A better way is to set the charset option to 'utf8'. This way MySQLdb realizes the connection is using utf8 and encodes things properly. For more explanation see MySQLDB's user guide.