Semantics - Mystery of the Menu tag

I haven't been following the conversation too closely, but there was some mention of Semantic HTML along with HTML5.  Regarding semantics, what ever happened to the menu tag?  Why has it been deprecated?  Do web sites NOT have menu navigation?  How is it that ul/li is more semantic then say menu/li ??? 

Could be this:
<menu>
<li>Item 1</li>
<li>Item 2<menu>
    <li>Sub Item 1</li>
    <li>Sub Item 2</li>
</menu></li>

Or...  
<ul>
<li>Item 1</li>
<li>Item 2<ul>
    <li>Sub Item 1</li>
    <li>Sub Item 2</li>
</ul></li>

I believe that in HTML5 there is something better on the way to approach this problem. But, IMHO if something going to be deprecated, it shouldn't be UNTIL the replacement exists.  

Any thoughts, or am I out of my mind here?? Or could it be I'm not getting this whole semantics thing?

-- Micah