It might help if the HTML was valid. Currently you don't have a body tag, nor do you close the html tag, and I have no idea what these are for:
<!menu/>
<!main/>
<!background/>
I'll see what I can do though.
Update
Well one way of doing it would be to use divs instead of lists to display the menu, and then setting the div and div:hover css to the opacity settings, whilst having the a:link and a:hover settings maintain an opacity of 1. Just quick thought, but it should work. The problem with using lists is that the link seems to cover the entire list entry, meaning you can have it either transparent or opaque, but not both for different elements.
<!menu/>
<!main/>
<!background/>
I'll see what I can do though.
Update
Well one way of doing it would be to use divs instead of lists to display the menu, and then setting the div and div:hover css to the opacity settings, whilst having the a:link and a:hover settings maintain an opacity of 1. Just quick thought, but it should work. The problem with using lists is that the link seems to cover the entire list entry, meaning you can have it either transparent or opaque, but not both for different elements.
