var o = {}; /* namespace */

(function(undefined) {

  this.trimPeriods = function(s) {
    var return_string; /* private to trimPeriods() */

    (function killCrushDestroy(s) { /* a non-polluting-recursive-function (that trims periods from the end of a string) */
      if (s.substr(s.length - 1, 1) == ".") {
        killCrushDestroy(s.substring(0, s.length - 1));
      } else {
        return_string = s; /* if we did a return here, we wouldn't be returning to the original caller */
      }
    })(s); /* pass the arg sent to trimPeriods() into killCrushDestroy() */

    return return_string; /* send return string back to whoever called us */

  };

}).apply(o); /* apply everything in here to the "o" object */

alert(o.trimPeriods("blah...")); /* alerts "blah" */