Top Menu spacing after link items in IE8

testing using this theme on my local XP/IE8 system. There is a large space between menu items when I use IE8 but not Chrome or FF, I also notice this on the online demo as well.

I thought maybe my system was not calling in html5.js but that is not the case. Also, the HTML5 tags are set to display:block in the CSS.

anyone know what is going on? Working in IE8 is a major requirement for me here to use the theme. My user site still has a major number of users using IE8 as their browser.

Al