Have you attempted the CSS Overflow property to control the additional text Orion?
See
http://www.w3schools.com/css/pr_pos_overflow.asp
Example -
http://www.w3schools.com/css/tryit.a...rycss_overflow
This should give you the same scenario you saw in Firefox in IE, placing a scrollbar on your content DIV. This method should allow you to position your footer DIV without the text running over top of it. Obviously you can also style the scrollbar in IE to blend it into the site better.