Hey Jabawocky, I have heard those criticisms of the data, and was a legitimate criticism, but recently debunked.
Are you familiar with the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project? It is funded in part by the Koch brothers, who are billionaire industrialists active in conservative politics and the project employs among their senior staff a couple of key figures identified as climate skeptics. The effects of temperature measurement station quality was the subject of a specific study they carried out, and it was proven, quite conclusively, that the station quality issues could be quantified, and did not bias the results of the temperature analysis. The paper they produced, which is accessible here
http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-station-quality.pdf is a straightforward read that sets out its data set and demonstrates how the results were obtained. They specifically look at the location and number of temperature measurement stations and assess their quality based on a number of factors such as surrounds, local slopes and local heat sources such as concrete areas, carparks etc. Their conclusions were
Based on both slope analysis and on temperature record reconstruction for the contiguous United States, using the temperature evaluations of Fall et al. [2009], we conclude that poor station quality in the United States does not unduly bias estimates of land surface average monthly temperature trends. No similar study is possible for the rest of the world because we do not have indicators of good/bad station quality; however, the lack of a significant difference in US stations suggests that such effects may be minimal.
They have another paper that looks at the heat island effect, which can be read here:
http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-uhi.pdf and shows that the heat island effect that some people claims invalidate data supporting global warming trends, does not exist in the manner claimed by those who identify as global warming/climate change "skeptics". Both these papers are relatively easy reads as scientific papers go, but if you're in a hurry skipping to the conclusions will give you the gist.
Global temp charts for Bolivia being warmer than Queensland? I havent seen them, where did you find them? And if Bolivia is warming up and you know why, do tell! Who is the paleoclimatologist you're referring to? Surely theres more than one credible paleoclimatologist in the whole country, and if theyre making that claim they should be happy enough to be identified.