I know I can use the following, and it will work, but is there something similar in jQuery that's already available?
$('a').click(function() { a = this; $.ajax({ url: this.href, success: function(data) { alert(a.href); } }) });
That's the way people do it in jQuery, although often people will use the variable "self" or "that". AFAIK there isn't a specific method in jQuery to do what you are referring to. Also you might want to do "var a = this" so that it doesn't conflict with any global variables.
-- Josh