[jQuery] Why is jQuery so slow?

[jQuery] Why is jQuery so slow?


http://dpaste.com/hold/19433/
I hadn't noticed this until someone actually loaded up a dataset of 1k
entries today and it made the browser croak.
Firefox:
DOM Creation Test
* jQuery: 1.323
* Normal: 0.128
DOM Creation Test (with vars assigned)
* jQuery: 1.026
* Normal: 0.128
Safari 3:
DOM Creation Test
jQuery: 0.333
Normal: 0.016
DOM Creation Test (with vars assigned)
jQuery: 0.334
Normal: 0.016
Is there any reason its so much slower to use jQuery for DOM
manipulation?