Ahhhh ... well John certainly lives up to his reputation.
I think R. Hurst has some good points. My personal opinion is that he puts too much weight on personal vigilence and too little on that of others. That is, within some fairly broad bounds, following the rules makes it easier for others to sucessfully interact. As circumstances get more exceptional then it becomes easier to consider alternatives. Moreover, personal vilgilence or general attentiveness is subject to user error. It isn't clear to me whether the average cyclist's error rate will be greater/smaller than the average driver's error rate. I think some of John's critiques are petty -- failing to describe how to cross perpendicular to railroad tracks?
Oh well, back to turkey and pie!