i think i've resolved it
 
here's 
a page that shows the problem, with firefox's font set to SERIF (it was set to this already)
 
<a class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image" href="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_06_2008/post-1-1214249113.png" data-fileid="1104">[img]<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_06_2008/post-1-1214249113.png[/img]</a>
 
and now the page with firefox's font set to SANS-SERIF
 
<a class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image" href="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_06_2008/post-1-1214249070.png" data-fileid="1103">[img]<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_06_2008/post-1-1214249070.png[/img]</a>
 
to change the fonts  in FireFox, click on edit/preferences/default fonts
 
<a class="ipsAttachLink ipsAttachLink_image" href="<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_06_2008/post-1-1214249130.png" data-fileid="1105">[img]<fileStore.core_Attachment>/monthly_06_2008/post-1-1214249130.png[/img]</a>
 
for those that have Fedora 9 and don't have this issue, please note i upgrade from F8 to F9 using yum and that might explain why I had the issue...
 
this has NOT fixed the problem totally as the 
following site still looks weird...
 
 
cheers
anyweb