Convert String to jQuery Object for HTML Parsing
<p>I have a simple string e.g.</p>

<pre><code>var s = "&lt;p&gt;Hello World!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;By Mars&lt;/p&gt;";
</code></pre>

<p>How do I convert <code>s</code> to a jQuery object? My objective is to remove the <code>&lt;p&gt;</code>s and <code>&lt;/p&gt;</code>s. I could have done this using regex, but that's rather <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/q/7886634/583539">not recommended</a>.</p>
