It's all well and good for Jeffrey Simpson to accuse Tony Clement of saying stupid things when he claimed that without foreign takeover of Inco, "the Sudbury basin would become a 'valley of death' " (We've Sold Off Assets So Often, Branch Plants 'R' Us - March 9). Exaggeration perhaps, but what could he truthfully have said? That, either way, it would become a "vale of tears?"