This fixed my issue in IE8:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
Running on localhost, I had to change the https:// to http://
If I try to browse to the secure link, I get the Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage friendly warning.
Always try to load your text scripts in a browswer first if there are issues!