Virgin white-sand beaches. Coconut palms. Old lighthouses. Deep freshwater lagoons. Clipperton Island has one of at least three of these things, and is among the most beautiful of the northeastern Pacific's tiny isolated uninhabitable spits of land with nothing on it. But this small island has not had the history of peace and utopia that one would expect of such a place. For over a century, the seagulls and inedible crabs that inhabit Clipperton Island have toiled under the cruel yoke of French colonial rule, under which they would be suffering if France ever did anything there. Ham radio operators have been allowed to visit the island with impunity, and the once-glorious if rather pointless lighthouse has fallen into decay since none of the locals know how to do anything except crap in it