Green card retrogression issue

What is it? I am sure many of us are still confused about this new ruling that has come out. How are we affected by this? To tell you the truth, all of us from India and China who are on H1-B visas and were hoping to apply for a green card are affected in a huge way unless a major reform comes along.
There are couple of places you can look for answers. One is http://www.isnamerica.org.
Another to check for visa bulletin updates is at the travel.state.gov.
My short understanding of this issue is that, we can all apply for the Labor certification and I-140. Once the 140 gets approved, we cannot apply for I-485/Adjustement of Status (which basically provides us with an EAD so that we then do not have to worry about our work and travel authorization) till our number becomes the current priority. What does this mean. There is a date of late 2001 as being the current priority date. This means that people who had filed before that date now have priority in the process. Each year, only a certain number of green cards are available to each country. If that number has been exhuasted, we have to wait till the next batch opens up. This means that if we apply now, there are 5 years of dates ahead of us. I don't know how big the number would be, but esitmations says that you won't be able to even file for the AOS till the next 5, 7 or even 10 years. This basically means, you can kiss the green card good bye!!
There are still ways you can keep extending your H1, but you cannot change jobs or job profiles which becoems very restrictive and can mean not having career options one would like.
I just hope all the lobbying on part of people from the affected countries and the industry in this country can help reverse this ruling and make the process easier for new applicants.
It is such an irony that all immigrants who are here legally and faihfully pay taxes to the governement are the ones who suffer the most in this process.