Adjusting data to fit the narrative.

NOAA and NASA have been doing this for years.  They have "adjusted" the data to eliminate the last 19 year plateau in measured global temperature.  The Daily Caller and Anthony Watt of the Watts up With That website describe this year's attempt to create global warming where there has been none. 
  NASA has been at this for a long long time.  They have a data base of every temperature measurement made, going back to the invention of the thermometer.  I downloaded the data a few years ago and plotted it.  The number of reporting stations from beginning of the records in the early 1700's starts out small, only dozen of stations reporting.  The number of reporting stations swells over the years, reaching a peak of better than 100,000 stations by the early 1980s.  Then in a great purge, the number of reporting stations was trimmed back from 100,000 to 30,000 in 1983 and 1984.  I wonder which stations got purged?  The ones reporting colder than average temperature, or the ones reporting warmer than average temperatures?  Who knows?