Writing

 $('div button:not(:last)').live(...) 

will catch events on all matching elements, even the (excluded) last one, ''and all of their parent elements''.

Removing the

div

from the selector will cause live to not handle anything at all.

Changing live to bind will cause it to handle the correct elements, with or without

div

.

Using

 :not(.Class) 

or

 :last 

alone will work correctly even with live.

Tested on 1.5 and 1.4.4

http://jsfiddle.net/SLaks/aPnYv/