I've searched the whole 1.0.x codebase (automated of course) and only find 3 instances of this code string and as far as I can see, there should not be any reason for this problem to occur.
Have you hacked your 1.0.9 Beta 2 code at all?
Have you checked your template index.php file?
I'd suggest, copying over all 1.0.9 Beta 2 files to your site again to see what this does.
To be honest I have little idea why this should be occuring and I havent seen this problem on any of 5 official Joomla! sites (e.g.
http://www.joomla.org) which are all running on 1.0.9 Beta 2