V_us (and m_s) From Hadronic Tau Decays

We describe how complications encountered in the extraction of V_us from flavor-breaking hadronic tau decay sum rules, in particular those associated with the slower than previously anticipated convergence of the relevant D=2 OPE series, can be successfully dealt with through judicious choices of sum rule weight. Problems with the previously proposed ``(0,0) spectral weight'' version of the analysis, and the much improved situation produced by the use of a number of alternate, non-spectral-weights, are demonstrated. The method is shown to promise a sub-0.0010-accuracy determination of V_us once analysis of the improved strange spectral data from BABAR and BELLE is completed. Connections to the tau versus electroproduction puzzle in the evaluation of the leading order hadronic contribution to (g-2)_mu are also discussed.